When the railway line between Warsaw and Radom was built in the 1930s, it ran through sparsely populated rural areas; station names were allocated with scarcely a thought for how the areas they serve would develop. Czachówek Południowy station was originally Czachówek before the war, as the one station serving the area between Ustanówek to the north and Chynów to the south (Sułkowice and Czachówek Górny stations would be built later).
During the height of the Stalinist era, along came the Skierniewice-Łuków line. A requirement of the Red Army - so it could get its troops to the western front bypassing Warsaw, seen as a nest of counter-revolutionary saboteurs - the line was a strategic priority. It passed under the Warsaw-Radom line north of the original Czachówek station. Over time, passenger services began to run over the Skierniewice-Łukow line, so it made sense to connect the two lines with a pair of adjacent stations (Czachówek Górny on the embankment carrying the Warsaw-Radom line over the Skierniewice-Łuków line, and Czachówek Środkowy in the middle of the diamond of spurs connecting the two main lines). And with the building of these, as well as Czachówek Wschodni to the east serving the village of Czarny Las, the original station of Czachówek needed a new name to distinguish it from all the other Czachówek stations. And so Czachówek Południowy came to be. It was renamed in 1962, when the Górny station opened.
But - as I wrote yesterday - the thing to note about Czachówek Południowy station is that it is not actually in Czachówek, but in the neighbouring village of Gabryelin. It is not even in the same gmina (municipality or commune) as Czachówek.
Gabryelin doesn't like the name of its station. In 2007 there was a local poll in which the majority of inhabitants who voted said that Czachówek Południowy should be renamed Gabryelin. A second preference was 'Czachówek-Gabryelin'. I read that local activists painted over the signboards and replaced them with Gabryelin. Such demonstrations tend not to work. The modernisation of the line (2017-2020) cemented the name Czachówek Południowy with new-style signage.
So - what to do? Retaliate...
Last year, the village authorities put up two huge signs, on either side of the tracks. The message is clear - Czachówek Południowy may well be situated on PKP territory, who are entitled to call their station what they like, but just take on step off the platforms and you're in Gabryelin. The choice of font (Drogowskaz - as seen on road signs - rather than Paneuropa Bold as used for station signage) is not accidental. Neither is the size - far larger than the normal white-on-green lettering seen when one drives into a town or village. The size is such that it can be read from a train passing at speed.
Gabryelin has aspirations to have its status changed from village to town as its population grows; this is very much what I predict will be happening across exurban Poland. A mere 36.6km from Warsaw Central station, with frequent (and the occasional fast) services to town, Gabryelin is the kind of place where more and more people will choose to live. It even has a Carrefour Express (rather than a Leviatan, Dino or Top Market)! A station named after the place it serves attracts investment, the village reasons.
Below: nice touch - a local map. Solectwo - the smallest unit of local government, a subdivision of a gmina. Headed by an elected sołtys or village elder with executive powers.
Below: modernised, Czachówek Południowy lacks working lifts (there's not the space for ramps, like at Chynów station). The lifts - installed with great delay - are perpetually broken. As they were today. There's no exit from the southern end of the platforms - as there was before the lifts were ready. Local people clamber over the tracks there anyway. Sod the locals? Sod your rules. And - unusual for a station of this size - there's no ticket machine. So boarding my train to Chynów, the conductor bid me go to the front of the train to buy my ticket. I joined a long queue; two stations on, I'd reached my destination, and so I hopped off without paying.
Below: in the underpass between the platforms; signage for the exit for Gabryelin... Centrum!
I wonder whether Gabryelin will see the day when the name of this station changes. Part of me is rooting for the villagers. Part of me, however, likes the notion of a village without a railway line lending its name to three stations that don't even serve it. A nice absurdity.
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Accounting for Coincidence
[The Henry Cow-Benjamin Piekut story]
This time two years ago:
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Poland's trains failing in the heat
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