Night shift on the Posázavský Pacifik: Train driver Marie Sehnalová
In Czechia it is not often that you board a train driven by a woman. The first documented case of a woman driving a locomotive in Czechoslovakia was Margita Horváthová back in 1963. More than 60 years later, female train drivers are still few and far between. Of the 9,162 train drivers in the Czech Republic today, only 110 of them are women. One of them is Marie Sehnalová who has been a train driver with Czech Railways for 12 years. She mainly drives diesel trains in Prague and its surroundings. Radio Prague International joined her on a journey from Prague to Čerčany.
Tuesday evening at Prague Central Station. Marie Sehnalová is getting ready for the night shift. Her train is due to leave from platform 2 at 6.55. She says she’s expecting a quiet night:
"My shift tonight is quite nice because it's on my favourite line: the Posázavsky Pacifik. That means Prague-Čerčany, but via Vrané nad Vltavou, not the faster line. I'll drive to Čerčany, then I'll go back to Prague to Central Station and here I'll connect with another colleague. We'll go to Vraný nad Vltavou, where we'll split up. My colleague is going to Čerčany again and I'll head for Dobříš. In the morning, at 4.46 a.m., I leave Dobříš and head back to Prague. And that's it."
That'll be around 6:30 in the morning. Marie has been a train driver for 12 years now and says she has got used to working night shifts. The train she is driving tonight is an 814-class motor carriage, called "Regionova" operated by Czech Railways. Each model has its own name stamped on the front of the engine. Today Marie is driving Kristýna.
At 6.55pm the train should be pulling out of the station, but the light is still red. And the track remains closed after another three minutes. Probably heavy traffic, Marie mutters to herself - and remains unfazed, as if a small delay was nothing unusual.
"It might be stressful for me, if I was a passenger in a hurry. But small delays are fairly common –even ten minutes is not considered extreme. We're not in Japan, after all. I was going to say Switzerland, but the last time I was there, they had a delay as well."
Six minutes after the scheduled departure time, the light finally turns green. The train conductor signals departure with her torch, Marie slams the door closed and the journey begins.
The 40-tonne train slowly rolls down the tracks of Prague's main station. The journey to the next stop at the Prague-Vršovice station takes four minutes. But in the driver's cabin, it feels like just a few seconds.
A few passengers get off and on and the journey continues smoothly. As Prague passes by the window, Marie Sehnalová explains how she got her job as a train driver. She was never a fan of trains as a child, she says:
"I had it different. I wanted to fly, but unfortunately, it didn't work out for health reasons. The railway was an alternative option."
Marie graduated from the transport faculty at the Czech Technical University in Prague. She then worked briefly in a company that carried out various studies on optimizing public transport. Eventually she joined Czech Railways.
"I joined Czech Railways thanks to my friends. I started working as a conductor, and there was an intermezzo as a train inspector, checking tickets plus checking up on colleagues. But I found that working with people wasn't so attractive for me, so I tried my hand at being a train driver. And it worked out."
As a train driver, Marie is usually alone in the cabin - unless she is training a future colleague.
"The advantage is that it's a job where you are fully in control and take responsibility for what you do. It's not like you have to rely on someone else, which to me is a positive thing about the job."
And what does a young woman think about when she's sitting alone in the cabin watching the landscape go by?
"It's actually a double-edged sword. Sometimes you just enjoy the journey and think about positive things. The problem is, when you have problems in life, they are always in your head. And here, you have to concentrate, to be fully aware of the situation. So one shouldn’t let one’s mind wander. Fortunately, things have been calm for six years now. But before that, there were about three fires, one suicide and one tree."
What Marie says about attention is confirmed shortly after, just outside Prague, when a deer unexpectedly jumps over the tracks close to the oncoming train. Marie expertly switches off the lights, sounds the horn and applies the brakes, and the animal runs away unharmed but terrified.
"Deer usually manage to escape. But wild boar, when they're bigger, they usually move more slowly and in a group. That’s a serious problem. And you get collisions with unexpected animals as well, a colleague of mine on the Boleslav line ran over a porcupine. I guess it must have escaped from a private owner."
According to current data from the Railway Authority, there is only one woman per 100 male train drivers in the Czech Republic. As the Posázavský Pacifik continues to move along its route, Marie Sehnalová talks about what it means to be one of a select few and why there is so little interest in the job among women.
"First of all, it is a technical job. And let's face it, not many women are interested in engineering today. Then there are probably some gender prejudices. Plus, it's a specific job in terms of work hours. It's hard to juggle with family life."
Marie says that she herself does not often encounter stereotyping:
"I guess I don't perceive it somehow, because I wasn't raised in a prejudiced environment. I judge people by their ability - not by their gender. But I'm sure there is prejudice, no doubt about that. I remember, for example, a colleague who works for ČD Cargo. She recounted how, when she was on a course in Česká Třebová, an instructor pointedly ignored the girls. There were two of them and they always knew the answers in class, but the instructor just passed them over. "
According to Marie, however, such opinions are increasingly rare.
"Personally, I think the time of dinosaurs is over. I think young people see it differently. And so gradually the work environment is changing."
And perhaps the different mindset of the new generation will also contribute to the fact that there will one day be more women among Czech train drivers. Because 110 women is still not a lot. But according to the Rail Authority, there were only 58 female train drivers in 2020, and the proportion of women in the profession is steadily increasing.
Marie Sehnalová herself is convinced that it does not matter who drives the train - the main thing is that it gets people from A to B safely. From the passengers' point of view, of course, there is another important criterion: that the train arrives on time. And in this respect, Marie cannot be faulted. Despite a six-minute delay in departure from Prague, her Os 9021 pulls into Čerčany at 21.09 hours on the dot, precisely according to schedule.
The first female train drivers most likely appeared on the scene in the 1950s as part of the communist campaign to "draw women into manufacturing". However, the names and stories of these women are not documented and no records have survived in the radio archives. This is why Margita Horváthová is cited as the first woman to drive a train in Czechoslovakia in 1963. Margita Horváthová started her career as an electrical engineer in the depot in Košice and after a few months in the depot she decided that she wanted to be a train driver. After completing the course, her dream came true.
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