Opole in the late October sunshine

A few beautiful days in late-October; on Tuesday 30th, the daytime high in Warsaw was 21C. Wednesday 31st, and a trip to Opole beckoned. Time to wake up at 03:45, catch the 05:11 to Zachodnia and the 06:05 from there to Opole. Train arrived on time; on the way back I had an hour before my train home, so time for a nose around the vicinity of Opole Główne, a junction station lying where the lines from Katowice and Częstochowa join the line to Wrocław.

Approaching Opole Główne station by rail from the east, one passes a multiplicity of sidings, train sheds and marshalling yards. Below: a long line of ET22 locos have stood here forlornly for a number of years, awaiting the scrapper's torch. The ET22 was the most numerous class of electric locomotives ever built in Europe, with 1,183 units built between 1969 and 1989. Around half are still in service.

Below: looks like a scene from a model railway - ET22-250. Note the steel grating protecting the cab side windows from break-ins.

Below: an EN57, Poland's ubiquitous and long-lived electric multiple unit train. It is said that after humans become extinct, and rats and cockroaches evolve to take over the earth, they too will travel to work on EN57s. This one is in PolRegio livery.

Below: a Deutsche Bahn freight train heads west through Opole Głowne station; note the original cast-iron canopy supports, which survived the station's recent modernisation.

This bright yellow-tyred, red-wheeled barrow in the strong late-afternoon sun caught my eye.

Architecturally, Opole's Centrum is an eclectic mix of styles, not all of which please the eye. I have snapped nicer bits of Opole before [here], so here's a more representative view. Below: the local government and tax offices, a piece of nondescript 1960s architecture.

Below: more pleasing to the eye, surviving German architecture on ul. Reymonta, looking resplendent in the sunshine.

Below: some late 1990s Połlysz Arkitekczer - all arches, glazed cylinders, aluminium facings - a style that in time may arouse some feelings of sympathetic nostalgia - "We once thought this was modern?"

Back to the station to catch the train back to Warsaw. Below: A modernised PolRegio EN57 arrives from Kędzierzyn-Koźle, and draws into Opole Główne

I board my train, the Fredro (Fred Roe?) which soon passes those two stations with names in Polish and German (Chrząstowice/Chronstau and Dębska Kuźnia/Dembiohammer). Below: wet fields between the two stations.

The sun set shortly after, bringing the last day of October 2018 to a most clement end.

This time last year:
Work begins in earnest on the Karczunkowska viaduct

This time three years ago:
Sublime autumn day in Jeziorki

This time four years ago:
CitytoCity, MalltoMall

This time five years ago:
(Internet) Radio Days

This time six years ago:
Another office move

This time seven years ago:
Manufacturing a City of Culture

This time eight years ago:
My thousandth post

This time nine years ago:
Closure of ul. Poloneza

This time ten years ago:
Scenes from a suburban petrol station

This time 11 years ago:
Red Arrows over Lincolnshire from 30,000 ft