Every year with the onset of winter, the people from PKP put out the
snowdrift fences along the line, to ensure that snow is not blown across the track, thus hampering rail operations. This year, for some reason, when the winter has been the harshest and longest since we arrived here, the fences sit stacked idly by the trackside.
Look closely at the photo
above, and you will just be able to make out in the foreground the rails of the unelectrified coal line from Okęcie to Siekierki power station. It had been snowing all day; by the time I arrived, the snow between the tracks and the fields was knee deep.
Above: This is how it should look: picture taken two years ago - 12 February 2008, same stretch of track (same two trees on the left). Not a snowflake in sight, but the track, where it's vulnerable to drifting, has been protected by the fence, which has been properly set up.
Above: A Radom-bound Koleje Mazowieckie train heads south. The coal train track to the right is invisible - this is where the snow has drifted across the tracks.
Above: Further down, nearer W-wa Jeziorki station, and the tracks are visible, now to the right of the photo. This section of track is not so prone to snow drifting across it.
Below: The TLK 11:27 Kraków Płaszów to Białystok service passes W-wa Jeziorki station; five hours after setting off, it's running bang on time. The total journey time is ten hours. Just three carriages. But that's another story...
Below: How it should look. Snowdrift fences in place alongside the track by W-wa Dawidy station. The fences are also protecting ul. Hołubcowa (the tyre tracks, centre) from snow, though they failed to keep the road passable to all but the sturdiest four-wheel drives.
Look closely at the photo above, and you will just be able to make out in the foreground the rails of the unelectrified coal line from Okęcie to Siekierki power station. It had been snowing all day; by the time I arrived, the snow between the tracks and the fields was knee deep.
Above: This is how it should look: picture taken two years ago - 12 February 2008, same stretch of track (same two trees on the left). Not a snowflake in sight, but the track, where it's vulnerable to drifting, has been protected by the fence, which has been properly set up.
Above: A Radom-bound Koleje Mazowieckie train heads south. The coal train track to the right is invisible - this is where the snow has drifted across the tracks.
Above: Further down, nearer W-wa Jeziorki station, and the tracks are visible, now to the right of the photo. This section of track is not so prone to snow drifting across it. Below: The TLK 11:27 Kraków Płaszów to Białystok service passes W-wa Jeziorki station; five hours after setting off, it's running bang on time. The total journey time is ten hours. Just three carriages. But that's another story...
Below: How it should look. Snowdrift fences in place alongside the track by W-wa Dawidy station. The fences are also protecting ul. Hołubcowa (the tyre tracks, centre) from snow, though they failed to keep the road passable to all but the sturdiest four-wheel drives.
How about, for fun and laughs, send PKP a letter with photos asking about it? Send to 'Pan Prezes' polecony, with return receipt. I'll fund the postage!
ReplyDeleteBob
the harshest winter?
ReplyDeleteJanuary was as cold as four years ago, February in terms of temperature is absolutely normal.
But it has not been so snowy since 1979, today snow cover in Warsaw exceeded 50 centimetres. Record from 31 January 1979, 70 cm has not been broken.
The longest winter? It has lasted just over two months, it might be the longest if it doesn't recede by 10 March. The notorious winter 2005/06 lasted around85 days, from the last days of December and the real thaw began at the beginning of third decade of March '06.
+20C and sunshine - a dream scenario? For you and me maybe but not for all those people whose property might be damaged by a flood. Most of them are not insured and who'll pay for it. State will help them and the state will lay on money to repair all destroyed infrastructure. And it will pay from our taxes, so who'll pay? We will pay.
Nevertheless I'm yearning for spring warmth and setting clocks forward
... harshest winter since we arrived here it clearly says, i.e. 1997.
ReplyDeleteBartek - word of wisdom. Don't get carried away by the might of empirical data; there's room for the subjective view as well in any rational discussion :-)
2005/06 - cold though it was, doesn't come close in my memory (or photo albums)to this one. Snow was never piled up so high then.
Sunshine - yes, a dream scenario. More likely +5C, rain, rain, rain, and then the entire city awash, literally, with dirty, salty, water.
I meant since then. But it is the harshest winter in terms of temperature and snowfalls altogether in my lifetime.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your remark, but some figures make the comment box more informative ;-)
I clearly remember big snowfalls on 31 Dec 2005, the night I had my studniówka (7/8 Jan) temperature dropped to -15C, I can recall big freeze with temperature hitting -27 on 24 Jan. February was quite normal, but in March winter was quite determined to give in. The first day of spring was still snowy, snow finally melted in my backyard on 30 March.
I only don't understand human behaviours. Yesterday I heard in a radio a man, whose journey from Natolin to Śródmieście, by car took him fifty minutes, plus twenty minutes for digging out his vehicle. Wasn't it simpler to buy a 20-minute ticket for 2 zł and go to town normally, by Metro?
And today, at 6:45 in the morning the traffic jam to the junction with ul. Puławska in Mysiadło was almost half a mile long. Since the junction has been rebuilt I haven't seen a car queue longer than 200 metres. Time to move out, gnash!
Bartek - my great Polish winter memory was from January 2006; we were driving to a conference in Sandomierz; the car thermometer gave the outside temperature as -26C at midday. I say an old woman bringing home firewood, and thought to myself "There's no such word as manaña when it's -26C!" A reason why Poland as an economy is capable of turning out harder work than the EU's Club Med countries.
ReplyDeleteThe man on the radio is a prat. He should have taken the Metro and stopped bleating. My daughter has a word for lame people like that - wozidupki.
right, there's no need to mince words, he's a prat. The next question is why such a woziduped doesn't pay 196 zł for a 90-day fare and doesn't commute to the centre everyday by the Metro.
ReplyDeleteMy father gave an example for his reasoning. He sometimes needs a car (like alomost everyone), so he has one and if somebody buys a car, they don't do it to keep it in the garage or on a car park. So such people use their cars even if going by public transport is more economical, faster and convenient.
Another reason is that not travelling by car is still perceived in Poland as a "social death" (i've read that phrase somewhere in a comment box on your blog - and it's true). Using a car, its make, model, age, class appears to be a benchmark of your social status. You don't commute to work by car, you don't have a car - you're inferior - carowners will remind you. Unfortunately I experienced it a few times in my life, even from my peers, but I don't care, they're dumb.
Will you be eager to buy a car for your daughter when she gets a driving licence and give moeny for petrol to make her life easier, like many parents in my neighbourhood.
Besides, given the amount of parking spaces and parking meters, using a car in the centre of Warsaw is pointless. For us, any solution that could make our joruneys to town more comfortable will be a huge P&R car park somewhere near Metro, 300 spaces next to Wilanowska station is much too few.
Personally I worked out a distance that ought to be covered by foot - 3 kilometres or two miles. If your destination is somewhere further, using a car might be justified (unless you have to carry something heavy). My neighbours ridicule every time I go by foot to Piaseczno - two or three kilometres there and back make a decent walk of five to six kilometres - every health man should be able to cover it instead of clogging the roads. The same neighbours drive their children to school which is just 700 metres away, waste fuel, wear out their cars, clog local roads and car park outside the school. They raise next generation of wozidupki and wozidupy and then complain their children are lazy and don't like physical effort. They just follow their parents who get into their cars and drive to the nearest cornershop to buy a few rolls and a newspaper. The same neghbours after ten minutes of snow clearing lose their breath and complain how tired they are.
And another "social" observation. You can clearly distingush that commuters who travel by 709 bus and drivers who sit in their cars in a traffic jam on ul. Puławska are two different groups of people. In the bus you see high school and sometimes university students, pensioners, women who don't have driving licences or are afraid to drive, or don't have a car, the unemplyed or low-paid workers, not white-collars. White collars sit behind wheels in their limousines and SUVs. Once or two times I've seen a really elegantly dressed woman or man in a suburban bus.
The problem with ul. Puławska is that it is one titanic block of slow moving traffic; to get to the P+R at Wilanowska, Stokłosy or the new one at Ursynów means 30 mins sitting in traffic jams (and worse for you guys in NI, and much worse for Sand City). P+R is a very partial palliative. The only solution is to extend rail south of Las Kabacki (effectively a huge barrier to getting into town). Burrow the Metro under it? Too expensive. Run passenger trains along the Siekierki line? They'll still have to go through the W-wa Zachodnia bottleneck. A fast tramline down Puławska would make sense.
ReplyDeleteBut soon spring will be here and I shall dust down my 8,000zł Cannondale and zoom past all the near-stationary wozidupkowie at a sustainable 20kmh all the way into work.
I knew I forgot something when writing. This P&R would be a sound solution, if Puławska was passable.
ReplyDeleteI bet you can't wait to return to cycle. But many times I managed to overtake cars on foot, like yesterday in the morning...
It's a pity that pavement along ul. Puławska is covered by snow. I stand no chance of morning racing snarled-up traffic from NI up to the junction with ul. Ludwinowska ;)