About this journey

The journey begins at Bratislava, the Slovak capital, and heads north-west toward the Czech border along lines 110 and 250 before joining line R13 into Brno. The train for this crossing is a ČD BR 193 Siemens Vectron, a modern electric locomotive well suited to the international corridor linking Slovakia, Austria, and the Czech Republic.

Between the two capitals the route crosses the Morava river floodplain, the low-lying frontier that has long separated Slovakia from Moravia. In spring the flooded plain can reach up to 8 kilometres wide, and even in summer the riparian landscape along this stretch marks a clear transition between the two countries.

The line arrives at Brno hlavní nádraží, one of the oldest railway stations in the Czech Republic. It opened for trial operation on 16 November 1838 as the terminus of the Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway from Vienna, designed by Austrian architect Anton Jüngling, and became a through station in 1849. Today it sits on the pan-international corridor linking Děčín and Prague with Břeclav and onward connections into Slovakia, Hungary, and Austria. A new main station is scheduled to begin construction in 2028, planned to open between 2032 and 2035 some 800 metres south of the current building — so the platforms seen here belong to a site in its final decades of use.