More about Poland's sleeper trains [new timetable for 2024]

I've been using the term 'night train', but more accurately I want to write about sleeper trains, where you can travel lying down while travelling by night. I've been on a late train from Wrocław to Warsaw with no sleeper or couchette carriages - a modern Dart multiple unit - having to sit upright from 11pm to 5am was a hellish experience never to be repeated. A sleeper train by definition needs to be loco-hauled, with two or even three carriages specially hitched to a rake of coaches that also includes normal seating (either compartments or airliner-styled). 

Today sees the annual change to Poland's (and indeed Europe's) railway timetables. There are minor adjustments throughout the year, but this is the time that new services are introduced or old ones axed.

So - how many sleeper trains are there after the timetable change? Excluding the international sleeper trains, there are six pairs; two start/finish in Warsaw (to/from Świnoujście and Szklarska Poręba Górna); two pass through Warsaw (Gdynia to/from Zakopane; Kraków to/from Kołobrzeg); and two bypass Warsaw altogether (Przemyśl to/from Świnoujście via Wrocław; Gdynia to/from Kraków via Wrocław). The international trains are the Chopin service from Warsaw to Vienna and Munich, and special trains from Przemyśl to cities in Ukraine.

Let's look at the six pairs of Polish sleeper trains in detail.

IC 18171 Uznam Warszawa Wschodnia - Świnoujście (dep. 21:04 arr. 06:06). Big change here - it's no longer a TLK (PKP InterCity's low-cost brand, using older carriages), it now sports the 'IC' prefix. As I noted last month, new sleeper carriages are now in use on this service. It leaves Warsaw an hour earlier than in the old timetable, and goes through Szczecin Główny (it formerly skirted the city, dropping passengers off at Szczecin Dąbie station, necessitating a change to a local service to get into the city centre). The earlier start from Warsaw isn't convenient; it means arriving in Szczecin Główny at 04:16 (and the sleeping-car attendant wakes you up half an hour beforehand). Still, in summer, the Uznam gets you to the Baltic beaches in good time. It also calls at Międzyzdroje, another resort popular with Germans as well as Poles.

IC 81170 Uznam Świnoujście - Warszawa Wschodnia (dep. 21:01 arr. 06:41) is the return service, taking slightly longer to return to the capital. Taking the Uznam there and back in summer gives you the best part of 12 hours on the beach. With a hotel or apartment from Saturday to Sunday, you can get a full weekend of Baltic sun-and-sea having worked Friday and being back to the office first thing Monday morning.

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TLK 16190 Karkonosze Warszawa Wschodnia - Szklarska Poręba Górna (dep. 22:01 arr. 0825). Popular with skiers in winter and hikers in summer, and calling in at Wrocław (04:47) and Wałbrzych (06:34) along the way. You will find old-style carriages here, all veneered wood, moquette upholstery and clunkiness. If you have an early business meeting in Wrocław, my tip is to sleep on to Wałbrzych, change there to take a local train back, which will give you another couple of hours of rest. Otherwise you'll be spending all that time in Wrocław Głowny's McDonalds until your meeting.

TLK 61190 Karkonosze Szklarska Poręba Górna - Warszawa Wschodnia - (dep. 20:27 arr. 06:01). The return service lets skiers and hikers get a weekend full of mountain air and get back to their Warsaw desks first thing Monday morning, having slept on the train.

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TLK 38170 Ustronie Kraków Główny - Kołobrzeg (dep. 21:34 arr. 09:34). Seaside-special for folks from Poland's south, which calls Kielce, Radom, Warka, Piaseczno, Warsaw and the Tri-City to the resorts of Ustronie and Kołobrzeg. You can use this train as a nocturnal connection between Warsaw and Gdańsk, though with less than four hours between the two cities, you'll not get quality sleep time.

TLK 83170 Ustronie Kołobrzeg - Kraków Główny (dep. 20:19 arr. 08:33). Passing through Warsaw at the dead of night, but avoiding Piaseczno and Warka on its way back south (for some reason taking a convoluted way through Pilawa, Dęblin and Pionki before hitting Radom and then the rest of the route as above).

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The Karpaty Zakopane to Gdynia Główna (TLK 35170) doesn't yet fully function due to delayed work on the track between Zakopane and Kraków, which means having to take a bus from the Blackpool of the Tatras down to Kraków, not a heap of fun in the middle of the night. Still, the Karpaty functions as another nocturnal connection between Kraków, Warsaw and the Tri-City (dep: Kraków Główny 00:10, calling at Warsaw Central at 04:40 and arriving in Gdynia Główna at 08:36). It takes the Częstochowa - Piotrków Tryb. route rather than serving Kielce and Radom. On the way back from Gdynia to Kraków, the TLK 53170 Karpaty leaves Gdynia at an unfeasibly early hour for a sleeper service (19:13), passing through Warsaw at 23:05 and arriving in Kraków at 03:32. And thence a bus for Zakopane. One to forget about until the track work south of Kraków is complete and the Polish mountains are connected to the Polish sea by night train again.

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Now on to the two sleeper services that skip Warsaw altogether. Both link Poland's south to the sea, connecting multiple major cities along the way. The first is the Rozewie (Gdynia Główna to Kraków Główny via Gdańsk, Bydgoszcz, Poznań, Wrocław, Opole and Katowice); the second - nicknamed 'Poland's Orient Express' for its sheer length, is the Przemyślanin service that links Przemyśl Główny on the Ukrainian border with Świnoujście on the German border.

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TLK 53172 Rozewie Gdynia Główna - Kraków Główny (dep. 22:38, arr. 08:32) drops down from the coast through Poznań headed to Wrocław, where it splits; here, some coaches travel on to Kraków via Katowice, while coaches for Szklarska Poręba are hitched to the TLK 16190 Karkonosze (see above), and the lengthened train continues on into the mountains.

TLK 35172 Rozewie Kraków Główny - Gdynia Główna (dep. 20:16, arr . 05:58).  It makes its way northward, again connecting the cities of Katowice, Opole, Wrocław, Poznań, Bydgoszcz and Gdańsk. As on the way down, passengers from Szklarska Poręba Górna can travel uninterrupted on to Gdynia, boarding the right carriages of the TLK 61190 Karkonosze, which are detached at Wrocław and hitched to the Rozewie. It is practically impossible to end up on in the wrong sleeper carriages of the Karkonosze, as the attendant checks all tickets on boarding.

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IC 83172 Przemyślanin Świnoujście - Przemyśl Główny (dep. 17:22, arr. 09:06). Fifteen hours and 42 minutes. The bad-boy of all Polish train journeys, more than 986 kilometres (612 miles) all the way. An early-evening start from Świnoujście, but there's a restaurant car attached. Given the nature of night trains, moving from your compartment to the restaurant means having to arrange this with the sleeping-car attendant. The carriages are delivered to Świnoujście station an hour or more before departure time, so you can leave your stuff in the sleeping car, and dine en route to Szczecin (18:52) or even as far as Poznań (22:14) before returning to your bunk(s). The train also calls at Wrocław, Katowice, Kraków and Rzeszów on the way, thus serving six of Poland's 16 provincial capitals. A proper InterCity train with modern sleeper carriages, superior in comfort to the stock used on TLK night connections.

IC 38172 Przemyślanin Przemyśl Główny-Świnoujście (dep. 18:15, arr. 10:07). The south-east and north-western extremes of Poland linked the other way. The same route, backwards, and a useful connection (as I found out) to travel from Kraków to Poznań (dep. 21:29, arr. 04:59), though of course pre-booking is necessary.

I will write a separate post about the Chopin night train that connects Warsaw to Vienna, Prague, Budapest - and now, Munich. The train splits up here and there - it's complicated. But there's enough above to be getting on with. See my recent post about travelling by Poland's sleeper trains (collection of all my older posts also linked to the label night train).

Tonight is the third of 11 evenings when the sun sets over Warsaw at 15:23, the earliest of the year (although the latest sunrises come later in the month). The darkness will pass; with the long days of late spring, the time to travel around Poland begins. Summer holiday season, however, sees sleeper train reservations getting snapped up early, so plan ahead.

Prices? PKP InterCity's online ticket office hasn't yet been updated (Dude, tomorrow's already the tenth, webpage says tickets will be for sale from the seventh of December...). Essentially, take the price of the normal seat from A to B, double it, and add sum that to the normal seat. So around 400-450 zł tops, minus discounts for age etc. I payed 219.90 zł for Świnoujście to Warszawa Gdańska for a two-berth sypialny, for example, with my 30% senior's discount. Three-berth is cheaper, a compartment for oneself requires the purchase of a first-class ticket. Couchette accommodation (no bedding, six bunks to the compartment) is the cheapest. Seat-only night travel by train is excruciatingly awful; avoid unless desperate (or a student).

Resources: Here's PKP's online timetable checker (as I said, can't buy tickets here yet). For the phone, I recommend the Koleo app, as well as the clunkier Portal Pasażera app, which has the bonus of showing you in more-or-less real time where your awaited train actually is. Both available on Google Play and no doubt on whatever it is that Apple has. In Polish only, a page from the InterCity.pl website about sleeper and couchette services. This mentions deluxe compartments (single and double) that have an en-suite toilet and shower. Wow, but I've never seen such a thing on domestic services (unless the Przemyślanin has one).

This time last year:
City-centre notes
[One week living in Warsaw's Nowe Miasto]

This time three years ago:
First snow for ages!

This time four years ago:

Politics and personal responsibility

This time five years ago:
Consciousness, memory and spirit of place

This time six years ago:
Polish Perivale

This time seven years ago:
Power in the vertical

This time 11 years ago:
And still they come [anomalous flashbacks that is]

This time 12 years ago:
Classic glass

This time 13 years ago:
What's the Polish for 'pattern'?

This time 15 years ago:
"Rorate caeli de super nubes pluant justum..."