From Jeziorki to Jeziorki

In today's world, information about anything is infinitely easier to find; online you soon develop your own well-trodden paths towards satisfying your need for knowledge. Yet among our bookmarked our favourite sites, there must be room for serendipity, random fortuitous events, that can bring unexpected information to us.

One heavily-used bookmarked site on my home and work computers is rozklad-pkp.pl, used to find out train times from Jeziorki to town and back again, and sometimes for longer journeys, for business or recreation. The software is not perfect. Type in a journey from "W-wa Śródmięscie" to "W-wa Centralna"...

And the result offered will be a far more exciting trip from Brussels to Chrzanów Śródmieście.

OK, it's a silly query as the two stations are connected to one another by underground passage, and indeed trains from one don't stop at the other. But my point is that the search software has problems disambiguating stations with similar names.

Now, type in "W-wa Jeziorki". Once again, the search engine cannot grapple with "W-wa" if there's any other station with a similar name in the system.

You get a disambiguation result (below), asking you to select from two stations...

So there are TWO Jeziorki stations?! Show me the other one! Well, it's Jeziorki Wałeckie, in the far north west of Poland, Zachodniopomorskie province. It's in an area so remote (closed line between Wałcz and Kalisz Pomorski. I bet most Poles couldn't accurately place these places on a map of the province) The station is not even open, the 40km line having been shut which means you can't make that journey. Leaving closed stations on the database always gives grounds for hope that one day they'll be re-opened. Indeed, two years ago, PKP published a tender for the restoration of traffic to the line.

But anyway, let's have a closer look at Jeziorki Wałeckie station (closed)...

Above: The station building at 'Jeziorki Wał.' Photo: Ryszard_K

Above: the platform at Jeziorki Wałeckie. Photo: Robert Nowicki.

So then... One day, a journey from Jeziorki to Jeziorki is in order.

This time two years ago:
Launching the General's book

This time three years ago:
A pavement for ul. Karczunkowska?
(For a while there it looked like the city authorities would provide us locals with a pavement so that we could safely walk to the station. Two years later - not a bit of it. Still waiting. A Big Boo to Bufetowa)

This time four years ago:
Taking off over Okęcie