Metro: The
subway system in
Prague,
Czech Republic, which is now the
backbone of the city's
public transit.
Construction began in
1965 and continues to this day. The first segment was opened in
1974. Currently, the subway has three lines, A (color coded green), B (yellow), and C (red), with a total of 50 stations. They are arranged so that there's a triangle of 3 transfer stations (Muzeum - A/C, Mùstek - A/B, and Florenc - B/C) in the city centre. Two stations are currently under construction on Line C, and Line D (presumably blue) is in planning stages; construction may begin around 2010.
The subway was, of course, one of the major achievements of the
Communist regime, and it was presented as such. Stations were given names such as Moskevská (
Moscow St.) or Gottwaldova (named after Klement Gottwald, the first Communist
president of
Czechoslovakia). After the
Velvet Revolution, 13 stations were renamed; however, cheerfully socialist
etchings and
mosaics can still be admired in a couple of stations.
There are three types of
trains currently in service: An old type called (
imaginatively) 81-71, manufactured in the '80s by the
Soviet Union, these trains are gradually being replaced as they approach their deadline; 81-71M, a refit version of the former, produced by
CKD; and M1, a brand new type, made since 1999 by a
Czech/
German consortium CKD/
Siemens. The oldest type still accounts for all the traffic on Lines A and B, while the newer ones are deployed on Line C. There was also a batch of trains from the '70s called Ecs, also made in the Soviet Union, which served as the basis for the 81-71 design. All of these were decomissioned in the '80s and '90s.
In the 1970s and '80s, the subway was planned as a
fallout shelter system in case of a
nuclear war. However, during the great
floods in August 2002, some of the seals and defences in tunnels and stations failed and more than half of all the stations were either flooded or cut off. Now in June 2003, everything is back to normal save for wall facings in two or three stations.
A chart of the subway lines in their
normal state can be found at http://www.praguebedandbreakfast.com/img/images/mapa-metra.gif . The two new stations are being constructed beyond Nádraží Holešovice.