Radom (pop. 220,000), is a city that Progress has not smiled upon. Unlike any other Polish city I've visited, it has no charm, no character, no direction, no idea how it is to develop. Łódź, another city where communist-era industry vanished in just a couple of years, now has unemployment at half of Radom's level. Łódź knows where it's going - it has done wonders in attracting inward investment, it has made a name for itself as a creative centre, and the ongoing refurbishment of its centre make it a city that people want to visit. Graduates of its universities are increasingly opting to stay in Łódź to work there (as indeed has my daughter).
But Radom, which underwent a similar implosion as Kalashnikovs and typewriters became less sought-after items, failed to reinvent itself. As a result, one in eight adults in Radom are registered as jobless, whereas in Warsaw it's one in fifty. So people from Radom and surrounding districts travel to Warsaw to find work; they come in large numbers, taking the train. The fastest time for the journey is just over two hours; the slowest train takes nearly two and half. The early-morning trains (two an hour, starting at 03:35) are full of sleeping people heading for Warsaw's insatiable labour market.
Yesterday, I took the 14:30 train from W-wa Śródmieście to Radom, alighting at Chynów to see how work on my działka is coming along. To my surprise, this mid-afternoon train was almost full as it left central Warsaw. By the time it stopped to pick up passengers at W-wa Służewiec ('Mordor Południowy'), the aisles and gangways were packed with people standing. I expected that much of this traffic would get off at Piaseczno, a dormitory suburb 23km south of W-wa Śródmieście. But I was wrong - more people got on the train than got off it (it was by now quarter past three). Piaseczno itself draws in labour from the south.
It was a jolly crowd. The weekend was here, the working week done. Many of my fellow passengers had come to Warsaw or Piaseczno to sell strawberries or cherries, and returning home with dozens of empty punnets; they were talking about prices, wholesale and retail, about the mushroom season. Others were office cleaners or canteen staff, working the early shift.
There was much cheerful banter, and because there was a mixture of women and men, the language not too salty, nor did I see any drinking or smoking going on. This tends to occur in the back of the third and sixth carriages and front of the fourth carriage (of a six-car set, counting from the front), in the compartments for bicycles and oversized baggage. It is here that the inveterate smokers and drinkers congregate, to while away their two-hour plus journey home.
The drinking set tend to leave Warsaw later, mainly cash-in-hand builders from the many construction sites around the capital. Drinking on suburban electric trains puts me in mind of Venedikt Yerofeyev's 1970 prose-poem, Moscow-Petushki. However, the ready availability of vodka in małpi (100ml and 200ml bottles) and beers at 7%-9% abv means that Polish drunks do not have to make do with what Yerofeyev and his pals had to imbibe - cocktails of nail varnish, hair lacquer, brake fluid, insecticide and eau-de-cologne.
The time-honoured practice of the hard-drinking Radomites entering their compartment, shaking hands with all the other (male - for no females travel here) passengers - is coming to an end as the old EN57 rolling stock is being successively modernised. The refurbished EN57-AKM stock has no walls between that compartment and the rest of the carriage, which means that any smoke carries right through the train. CCTV cameras monitor passenger behaviour. The toilets are the only refuge for desperate smokers, but social pressure is slowly making this practice unacceptable.
Over the past six months or so, I have come to know the Radom line down as far as Chynów much better than before; the rhythm of life, the inexorable economic pull that Warsaw exerts beyond its outermost exurbs.
It's a hot afternoon, the train - an unmodernised EN57 set, has all its windows open in lieu of the air conditioning found on the newer EN57-AKM trains. It's pleasant. Less so in mid-winter, when the journey to town and home again takes place in darkness, passengers are carrying heavy coats and the temperature outside is well below zero.
A large woman, who had been dozing, asked whether we'd passed Warka yet, a landmark (half-way from Śródmieście to Radom). No, explained her neighbour, we're still half an hour from Warka. The journey is long.
Below: W-wa Wschodnia to Radom service calls at Chynów, 22 May 2018. Served by a six-car set, the front three being an early EN57 unit - the classic with three windows in front and the 'rippled' sides. There's still a handful of these on the Radom line, usually paired up with a newer units, like later, unmodernised EN57s with two windows in front and slab sides.
The lime-green, white and yellow livery looks resplendent against a cloudless sky.
This time three years ago:
Civilising Warsaw at the local level
This time four years ago:
Rustic retreat rained off
This time six years ago:
Thunderstorm over Jeziorki
This time seven years ago:
Getting lost on top of Łopień
This five nine years ago:
Regulatory absurdities in Poland
This time ten years ago:
Czachówek and Alignment
This time 11 years ago:
Joy, pain, sunshine, rain
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