Stanislav Šmatlák

* 1950

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    Signalmen and shunters were replaced with machines

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    “There isn’t a single signalman at the station. It’s all done by computer. It’s changed a lot. There’s not a single shunter at the station. It’s done by machines. That is, when a train comes to the station, it stops, the engine driver moves over from the back to the front, and the train is ready to leave. In the past, when the train came in, they had to pull it out so the engine could depart. It was hard work. The relay has made people’s work much easier. The signalling relay, to be precise.”

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    Pieces of the buffer stop were strewn all over the station

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    “It’s not that long ago, the train ran over the buffer and ended up on the platform. My opinion is that either the engine driver fell asleep, didn’t brake, or the brakes on the train failed. It was also in the television, I saw it smashed up. And it was lucky that didn’t kill anyone, because pieces of the buffer stop were strewn all over the station. But I don’t remember there ever being a big crash - trains crashing head on - no. Nor have I heard anyone tell of something like that. All in all, Masaryk Station was a calm place.”

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    Lots of people thought I was homeless

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    “The riff-raff always gravitated towards the station. It was their place to be. Lots of people would confirm that. When the cops were looking for someone, they’d almost certainly find them at the station. If not at the one station then at the other. There was nothing else back then. If you said of someone that you knew them from the station, that could have been me as well. I lived, worked, spent my time there. I wasn’t the homeless bloke who slept there. But lots of people thought I was, before they got to know me.”

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    Praha, 07.10.2016

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I took up my abode in Masaryk Station, but I’m not homeless

Stanislav Šmatlák, 2016
Stanislav Šmatlák, 2016
zdroj: autoři natáčení
zdroj: autoři natáčení
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Stanislav Šmatlák was born on 19 May 1950 in Písek. He trained as a chef and a waiter. He was employed as a manual labourer. In the second half of the 1960s he moved to Prague and worked on the construction of the metro. From the early 1970s he was employed at Czech Railways, where he did various jobs. He as given an employee flat at Masaryk Station in Prague, which he knows from the times when it was still a busy place.

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