To Rzeszów and back, directly, by train

My tenth visit* to the beautiful and booming capital of Podkarpacie province, Rzeszów. I boarded the train at Warka and got off in Rzeszów three hours and ten minutes later. No need to change trains in Warsaw, or Dęblin or Lublin or Kraków or Przeworsk (I have done all of these). No need to transfer onto a replacement bus service. No longer any need to take a sleeper train – or fly. 

In both directions, I shared a compartment with people who were uniformly praising the massive improvement in Poland's state railways over the past few years. 

There are now two pairs of InterCity trains a day between Warsaw and Przemyśl, the Witos and the San, calling at Piaseczno, Warka, Radom, Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski and Sandomierz on the way. Those last two stations were linked by a replacement bus service for a couple of years as the tracks between them were relaid. 

I took the San, leaving Warka at 17:49 and arriving at Rzeszów Główny (scheduled at 20:56 but with a few minutes' delay). My ticket (with 30% seniors' discount) cost me 25 złotys – just over £5 for a 265km (165 mile) journey. The compartment had six seats, the journey comfortable. 

And when the train arrives at Rzeszów Główny station – the station is complete! It's ready! The work, which began in 2018, is finished! No more traipsing through mud, leaping over puddles, hauling suitcases over an improvised wooden footbridge, or navigating poorly signposted labyrinths of corrugated-metal fencing. All that's missing is a shop and/or café. Otherwise – job done! 

Below: the facade of Rzeszów Główny station; to the left, as I snapped it in 2017, and right, as it is today. Plainer, simplified, minus the decorative parapet housing the digital clock, and cast in contemporary corporate colorways. Somehow looks more serious, less jolly. But a step further away from 1990s Polisz Arkitekczer. 

Below: stepping inside the main entrance (you still have to push the door to open it!) the two murals inside the ticket hall were preserved. are right up there along with Gdynia and Gliwice. The one above represents the rolling hillsides of the Podkarpacie countryside, the one below, the city of Rzeszów with its old town square and its warrens of underground cellars and passages, ringed by postwar blocks. In the form of mosaics, the murals are from the 1960s and were restored under the watchful eye of the heritage conservation officer.

Below: a view of the platforms at Rzeszów Główny station taken from Rzeszów Centrum station. The distance between the platform ends of these two stations is just over 300 metres. A single empty carriage is being shunted by a classic EU07 loco. This example was built in 1984, one of a successful series of electric (E), universal (U) locos that began production in 1964, as licence-produced version of the English Electric-built EU06, the main difference between the -6 and the -7 being metric measurements used in the Polish-built engines.

Cross the tracks under the platforms at Rzeszów Główny via the new pedestrian subway and you emerge in a Tarkovsky-like Stalker zone. Signs warn of possible structural collapse of the old engine shed; the area is fenced off. The spray-can community somehow finds its way in.

Below: west of Rzeszów Główny station, the tracks branch off, north towards Sandomierz, and (as here) onwards towards Kraków. Level crossings abound – three within 400 metres – causing major traffic congestion during rush hours.

The journey back on the InterCity Witos Przemyśl-to-Warsaw service is 34 minutes longer than the journey there, according to the timetable. This was due to longer station stops; 11 minutes in Tarnobrzeg and seven minutes in Radom for example. This time, I managed to get a first-class ticket with seniors' discount for an amazing 35 złotys (just over £7). Nice refurbished compartment, with wireless smartphone charging. No restaurant car on either the San or the Witos, although there are two modern vending machines that offer snacks and hot and cold drinks (tap with your payment card).

All in all, the train today makes travelling around Poland quicker and more convenient, and is so much faster than it used to be. Highly recommended – although modernisation of the line between Sandomierz and Rzeszów is due to start soon, so that replacement bus service will be back, after which journey times will be cut further still.

* My previous visits to Rzeszów: 2006, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019 (twice), 2022, 2023 and 2024. Click on the label 'Rzeszów' to the right.

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