Czech Railways (České dráhy - ČD) is the largest Czech company by the number of employees and holds 856 electric locomotives, all built by Škoda Works (Škodovy závody), the largest industrial enterprise in Austria-Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia. Among these locomotives are a few dozen of model 71E/99E, from the ČSD Class E 499.3, classified now as Class 163. E 499.3 locomotives operate on the 3,000 V DC system and are essentially a DC only version of the ES 499.1. They were produced between the years 1984 and 1992 in four series of 20, 40 (2nd and 3rd serie) and 60. In the postcard is the locomotive with number 163 073-0 (built in 1991), photographed in the summer of 1999 near Libochovany, 60 km north-west of Prague.
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