The darker side of Dworzec Centralny

Down down, down down, and I'll take you down in the underground, down in the dark, down in the pits...

Having written two pieces about the goings on below the Dworzec Centralny (here and here), I decided yesterday to explore the further reaches of the station, visiting parts where few ever venture. Visual inspiration for film-makers wishing to take up the story.

Above: Warsaw's skyline looking from Złote Tarasy, over the Central Station. It's Thursday night, the capital's buzzing. But what happens below city streets? Let's go to (publicly accessible) parts of the station where the passenger rarely strays. Below: stairs leading to the western end of Platform 4. Let's descend, shall we?

Looking across from the bottom of these stairs, you can see how empty it is out here. Most trains stop in the middle sectors of the station, which is where most passengers congregate, by the escalators. The station looks empty in these pics, but bear in mind that this is rush hour (just gone six o'clock on a midweek evening).

The Dworzec Centralny lies within the Tunel Średnicowy, the 2.3km (mile-and-half) long tunnel that takes trains under the very heart of the city.

Above: looking west from the end of Platform 4. Two station cleaners taking a break (left). There are level crossings at this end allowing baggage trolleys to cross the tracks. There are no signs prohibiting passengers from crossing, simply because none ever stray this far down the 500m long platforms. Below: Looking east from the end of Platform 1.

I often have dreams of the nooks and crannies under Paddington Station (through which I commuted for many years with my fold-up Brompton bike); Victorian brick, cast iron vaulted arches, tunnels running this way and that, dark nooks and crannies. Dworzec Centralny, built over a century and a quarter later, has a different atmosphere - concrete, steel, tiling. But the ambience of those dark and distant corners is similar.

Above: Ramp leading down to the storage tunnel under the platform level. There are four such ramps, at the eastern end of Platforms 1 and 2 and at the western end of Plaforms 3 and 4. Note the damp stains on the concrete floor.

Below: Stairs leading from the eastern end of Platform 2 to the corridor linking W-wa Centralna and W-wa Śródmieście. In the centre of the pic the ramp leading down to the underground meat processing factories.

Below: a passageway connects the eastern end of Dworzec Centralny with W-wa Śródmieście suburban station. Here, on Level -2, there are numerous (locked) wooden doors. What's behind them - small storage rooms, or access to larger underground halls, or further passageways?


Next to the police station (komisariat) on Level 0 (north passageway), I found a door ajar. I pushed it open to grab this shot. Note the dirt on the walls, grubby floor, fluoresent lighting. Could there be illicit food preparation operations going on here too, right under the noses of the police?

If you too have a hate/love relationship with Dworzec Centralny, its smells, its clientele, its bing-bong chime announcements, its association with the beginnings and ends of journeys into the Polish heartlands, then a visit here is a must. Refurbishment has started, so by the time the football championships kick off you won't recognise the place. Hopefully.

And another article about the underground kebab factory - and its forthcoming place in local urban legend - from TVN (in Polish).