Drážní vodárna Kasejovice Waterworks

The railway water station in Kasejovice in the Plzeň region is a standardised building that supplied steam locomotives with water on the local railway line. In 2020, the Ministry of Culture declared it a cultural monument.

Its story begins with the railway from Blatná to Nepomuk. A group of concessionaires received permission to build in February 1897. It was supposed to be merged with the concession for the local line from Strakonice to Březnice, which the same group had already received in June 1896. The plans were drawn up by the firm of engineer Jan Kodl from Písek. The construction company Životský, Hrabě and Kovářík began work in November 1897 and the construction was supervised by engineer Jiří Hauser. Operations began in 1899. Water stations were built according to how far steam locomotives could travel. One was therefore located in Kasejovice and another in Blatná.

From 1928 onwards, motorised rail cars were used for passenger transport. Steam locomotives continued to pull freight trains until 1969. In the nineteen eighties, the water station ceased to serve its purpose.

The station received a set of standardised buildings according to plans for local lines, which were managed by the Railway Department of the Provincial Committee of the Kingdom of Bohemia. In addition to the station building, there was a warehouse with a ramp, toilets, a water crane, a well, a cleaning pit and a rubbish pit.

The water station itself is a free-standing building with a rectangular floor plan. The northern part consists of a two-storey water reservoir, the southern part a single-storey coal shed. On the ground floor of the reservoir was a boiler room, probably originally with a steam boiler. On the first floor is a riveted open tank holding thirty cubic metres of water.

The ground floor is made of fired bricks and is smoothly plastered. It is surrounded by a low base of ashlar stone and the water reservoir is topped at this height by a massive brick cornice. The first floor is timber-framed, filled with bricks and clad with vertical boards with segmentally cut lower ends. Both parts are covered with low pitched roofs with overhangs and fired beaver tail tiles. The roof of the reservoir is perpendicular to the long axis of the building, the roof of the shed runs parallel to it.

Two entrances lead to the railway tracks, one to the shed and one to the reservoir. Both are decorated with plastic arches of rough plaster. To the left of the entrance is an original water level gauge set into the masonry, which showed the height of the water level in the tank.

Water was pumped from a well in front of the northern façade into the tank and from there flowed by gravity into the illuminated water crane by the track. Originally it was pumped by a pulsometer, a steam pump, which was later replaced by an electric one. The water crane disappeared during track repairs. The inlet and outlet pipes with valves have been preserved in their entirety.