Friday, 9 December 2016

New 'up' platform at W-wa Jeziorki approaches completion

Getting off the train from town last night, I could see that the new 'up' platform is nearly ready to be put into service ('oddane do użytku' - which Google Translate gives merely as 'completed'). As an aside here, I'd add that the pedestrian footbridge at W-wa Okęcie was completed in April, but has still not been oddane do użytku, which literally means 'handed over for use'. Anyway, thanks to the intensive work on this stretch of track, things have been moving much quicker than around W-wa Okęcie station, where there's still much to do to connect the new 'down' line with W-wa Dawidy.

Below: looking south towards Nowa Iwiczna station, taken from what will be the 'down' (southbound) platform. The pedestrian crossing takes you across both new tracks, and then a newly-built footpath, bounded by a metal mesh fence on both sides, leads to the new 'up' (northbound) platform. It's sodden with rainwater, but passable.


I go. There's no signage up. None at all. No signs to say either 'platform is now operational', or 'platform is not in use, please use other platform for trains to town'. Below: view of the 'down' platform from the new 'up' platform yesterday evening. Pallets suggest that the laying of paving slabs has only just been completed. To the right, a display board with the station name, but no timetables as yet. The new PKP timetables come into operation on Sunday 11 December; my guess is that this platform may be in use by then...


Below: photo taken today from the very far end of the new 'up' platform shows a clear surface; the construction crew has cleaned up and moved on. Still no information about when it opens. As I finished my explorations, a town-bound train passed along the other track and stopped at the opposite platform, so single-track working is still in operation.


I can see it will be a long, long while before ul. Karczunkowska reopens. The fenced-off footpath to the new 'up' platform crosses the road, blocking even construction machinery from getting through. And there's no sign whatever of work on the viaduct that's meant to carry Karczunkowska over the railway tracks.

The new timetable gives the long-suffering users of the Radom line no new services, merely a rejig of the old timetable. Instead of trains to town at 07:04, 07:25, 08:07, 09:08 and 10:08, they are spaced more irregularly; 07:04, 07:49, 08:21, 09:08 and 09:53. The 08:21 service gets into W-wa Śródmieście at 08:52, so I'll be cutting it fine for nine o'clock meetings in the office (a 12-minute walk from the station).

Below: update from the morning of Saturday, 10 December. The new timetable is up. Trains will run from here as of tomorrow. But for today, confusing - how many people were waiting here for a train to town that arrived at the other platform? I saw someone in this predicament last night...


Below: southbound trains will continue to use the opposite platform. Single-track working ends tomorrow morning - the 04:53 to Warszawa Wschodnia will be the first train to use the new 'up' platform. In future years, this photo, without a viaduct crossing the lines, will be an archival rarity!


Bonus photo, below, looking south at the new platforms, which are about to be passed by a train of empty wood-chip wagons heading north towards the Okęcie sidings on the coal train line from Siekierki via Konstancin-Jeziorna.



This time last year:
Tottenham Court Road station revisited

This time two years ago:
Zen and the Art of Publishing

This time four years ago:
Wrocław, another Polish city of neon

This time five years ago:
Ronald Reagan remembered

This time six years ago:
Accident of birth

This time eight years ago:
Under the Liberator

This time nine years ago:
Jeziorki on old maps

4 comments:

dr Marcin said...

Mike,

A local tip-off is, that a detour (whether, a by-pass) is to be constructed back off Biedronka and back off a new platform. And that the old level-crossing has disappeared forever.

Michael Dembinski said...

@ Dr Marcin,

Many thanks! I knew that the 'temporary closure' of Karczunkowska with a New Year re-opening date was pie in the sky. I shall have to go and check it out, regardless of the non-stop rain forecast for the weekend!

Marcin said...

completed = ukończony (i.e. all building and associated work has been done).
oddany do użytku = commissioned (i.e. all paperwork signed off, sealed and filed)

Michael Dembinski said...

To commission =

1) Give an order for or authorise the production of (something such as a building, piece of equipment, or work of art). "A new $5million production line was commissioned at the New Century Kansas facility."

2) Bring (something newly produced, such as a factory or machine) into working condition. "We had a few hiccups before we could get the heating equipment commissioned."

Now, given these two completely different meanings, one from the very beginning of the process, and one from the very end, I'd not use 'to commission' in the sense of 'oddać do użytku'.

Google Translate give it as 'to put into operation'. Not quite, either.