The Plum Line

The railway across the southern foot of the České středohoří is owned by a company that makes railway signalling. AŽD Praha did not buy it to run trains. When the state sold off the closed branch from Čížkovice to Obrnice in 2016, AŽD was the only bidder, and it paid about 5.7 million crowns for thirty-five kilometres of track it wanted as somewhere to test its own equipment. It is still that. The line carries AŽD's balises, its computer interlockings and a fibre-optic cable that listens to the rails. In December 2021 it carried the first driverless train to run on a Czech railway, at a public demonstration near Libčeves.

It also carries passengers, every day. The last state train left in December 2007, and for a decade afterwards the line saw only seasonal weekend trips. Since 15 December 2019 AŽD has run line U10 from Litoměřice through Lovosice to Most under contract to the Ústí Region, with four green-and-yellow railcars named Janička, Míša, Terezka and Radka. The plum on their sides is the line's old nickname, the Švestková dráha, which it got from the orchards and plum avenues that grew along it before the war.

The ride takes a little over an hour. The trains are ordinary regional ones on an ordinary regional fare, and the country they cross is anything but: farmland broken up by volcanic cones, with ruined castles on their summits, and garnet and Goethe in the villages between them.

Line U10 starts at Litoměřice horní nádraží, the upper station of the old cathedral town on the Elbe, and runs south across the river plain to the junction at Lovosice. These first kilometres are on other people's track. The Plum Line proper begins at Čížkovice, where the trains leave the line to Louny and turn west into the hills.

Through the middle

From Čížkovice to Třebenice the line runs along the southern edge of the České středohoří. The range was made by volcanoes, and it shows: the hills stand separately, steep-sided and pointed, and the one north of Třebenice, Košťál, has a castle ruin on its tip. Třebenice has two stops, the station and Třebenice město on the edge of town, and it is the place to get off for the garnet museum.

Beyond it come Dlažkovice and Podsedice, both request stops, and then Třebívlice, the midpoint and the line's working centre. The station's technology room holds the diagnostic system that monitors the whole railway. Hourly trains from Litoměřice turn back here; every second one carries on to Most.

West of Třebívlice the hills fall away and the line crosses open farmland through Židovice, Libčeves and Bělušice. This was a border district. After the Munich Agreement of 1938 the frontier of the annexed territory crossed the line, and new border posts went up at Čížkovice, Podsedice and Libčeves. During the war the German army gave its hospital trains priority here, because the hills made the line hard to attack from the air. Five small stations on the way — Sinutec, Semeč, Skršín, Sedlec u Obrnic and Obrnice — are passed without calling, and the journey ends at Most, the brown-coal town whose old centre was demolished for the mines.

Closure, and what came after

The line opened on 19 December 1898. It was built to carry the produce of the farms in between, and the workers who went to the mines at Most. Freight left in the early 1990s, and passengers drifted away after a dispute over who should pay for the service left it with a thin timetable. The last regular passenger train ran on 8 December 2007.

In 2014 the infrastructure manager declared the line surplus and offered it for sale. AŽD Praha bought it in 2016 and rebuilt it as a test site: new signalling at the stations and crossings, everything controlled from Čížkovice, ETCS, and a line speed of 100 km/h. A tourist service ran at weekends from 2017. Daily trains returned on 15 December 2019.

What runs on it

The U10 is worked by four RegioSprinter railcars, built by Siemens and Duewag in 1995. They have a low floor, air conditioning, wi-fi and sockets, 65 seats and room for 100 standing. AŽD named them Janička, Míša, Terezka and Radka, and the names are painted on the front. Steam has come on 1 May in recent years. In 2025 that meant 464.102, a 1940 express engine from the National Technical Museum, nicknamed Ušatá.

The trains you ride do not drive themselves. The driverless demonstration of December 2021 needed the line closed for the occasion. Afterwards AŽD moved its trials to its other railway, Kopidlno to Dolní Bousov, which has no regular passenger trains, because driverless running in public service needed a change in the law first.

The Plum Line is line U10 of the Ústí Region's integrated transport system, worked by AŽD Praha. It runs every day of the year to a two-hour clock face between Litoměřice and Most, with an extra train each hour between Litoměřice and Třebívlice. No reservation is needed.

Times below are from AŽD's published timetable for 2026, valid from 14 December 2025, read in October 2026. Check departures at svestkovadraha.cz (opens in a new tab).

Litoměřice to Most

The run takes about 1 hour 13 minutes. In the odd hours, from 07:14 to 19:14, a further train leaves Litoměřice at :14 and terminates at Třebívlice at :56.

Most to Litoměřice

Most trains take about 1 hour 15 minutes; the 22:27 ends at Lovosice. The extra hourly trains start back from Třebívlice at :00 in the even hours, from 08:00 to 20:00.

Holidays and request stops

The evening service is cut back on 24 and 31 December, and the first trains of the day do not run on 25 December or 1 January. Several halts, including Třebenice město, Dlažkovice, Podsedice, Libčeves and Bělušice, are request stops, where trains call only when someone wants to get on or off.

Steam

AŽD has run steam on 1 May in 2023, 2024 and 2025. In 2025 the train left Most at 07:30 and 13:30 and came back from Litoměřice horní nádraží at 10:25 and 16:25. Dates for 2027 had not been announced when this page was checked; they appear on the operator's news page (opens in a new tab).

The U10 is part of Doprava Ústeckého kraje (DÚK), the Ústí Region's integrated transport system, so the fare is a DÚK fare rather than a railway one. The national One Ticket fares are valid on the line too. Single tickets can be bought in the DÚKapka app, and the region's online fare calculator gives the price for any pair of stops.

The May Day steam is the exception. It runs outside the DÚK tariff and its tickets are sold on board only, with no advance booking. In 2025 they cost 170 CZK one way for adults and 80 CZK for children aged 2 to 18.

Interrail and Eurail passes do not cover the U10. Interrail's list of Czech operators whose trains a pass is valid on names České dráhy, RegioJet, Leo Express and European Sleeper, and AŽD Praha is not among them.

A pass can still bring you to the start. Lovosice lies on the main line from Prague to Děčín, and České dráhy services are covered, so somebody already travelling on a pass that day can ride to Lovosice and buy a DÚK ticket there for the Plum Line itself. Buying a pass for this line alone makes no sense.

Pass conditions checked against Interrail's railway-companies page, last updated 21 October 2026. Conditions change with each season, and the pass issuer's page is the one that binds.

The line has a stop every few kilometres, and most of what is worth seeing lies within walking distance of one of them. The places below run in order from Litoměřice.

Litoměřice is worth a morning before the train. Třebenice is the stop for the castle on Košťál and the garnet museum, and Třebívlice for Ulrike von Levetzow. The stone suns are a walk or a short ride from Libčeves, and Most, at the far end, has the church that was moved.

The whole line is an hour and a quarter end to end, with trains until late evening in both directions, so it is easy to ride as a day out and sleep at one end.

Litoměřice is the more convenient base: it is the end the hourly trains serve, and its historic centre is a protected town reserve worth an evening of its own. Most, at the other end, is a large town with hotels as well. Both hotels below keep their own websites and take direct bookings.

Planning this trip and stuck on something, or spotted a time, fare or detail that has changed? Send us a message about The Plum Line. We read every one, and we update this page when something has changed.