The little railway town on the (old) border

On my way to Zielona Góra in western Poland, I change trains at Zbąszynek. I am greeted by unusual (for Poland) railway architecture, and discover some interesting history. Below: Zbąszynek station from Rondo Św. Katarzyny Aleksandryjskiej Patronki Kolejarzy.

Below: Zbąszynek station at platform level. This is not your usual former-German railway station. Clearly built in the 20th century, it has none of the Gothic-wood-glazed-tile-and-wrought-iron look that I usually associate with railway architecture across Lower Silesia or Pomerania, usually dating back to the 19th century. Note concrete lamp standards, for example, and the shape of the platform shelter roof - the breadth of the platform with a lawn inset with decorative bushes.

Below: the booking hall - sadly, no longer selling tickets in person as of the end of October 2020, just a couple of ticket machines. 

I have half an hour before my connecting train - just long enough to venture gingerly into Zbąszynek to have a nose around. It's not just the station - the entire town was built around the railway. The history is fascinating. 

Zbąszyn (formerly Bentschen), 6km down the line to the east, was a major German railway junction prior to World War I. As a result of the border changes following the Treaty of Versailles, Bentschen became part of Poland with an important border station, with many platforms and customs sheds. Through here steamed trains from the Soviet capital, through Poland and on to Berlin and Paris. Neu-Bentschen was built by the Germans in 1923-24 as a replacement for the old railway junction that Germany had lost, and it served as the border station (grenzbahnhof) on the German side.

It was necessary to house the railway workers and customs officials and their families - several hundred in all - in the new junction town, and so Neu-Bentschen became a settlement built for the needs of the new station. Designed along modernist principles of a model garden city by architect Friedrich Viel, Zbąszynek looks and feels highly atypical for Poland. This is town planning done right

Below: here is the railwaymen's house of culture, built in the late 1920s or early '30s - I sense quite a Home Counties vibe here, a bit of Welwyn Garden City. It's certainly a long way from the typical Germanic architecture of western Poland.

...and across the road, a narrow-gauge steam loco rusts away, neglected... Interesting to note that narrow-gauge never passed through this part of Poland (nor indeed, prior to 1945, of Germany).

Heading back to the station, I am struck by the symmetry of the architecture. Conspiracy theorists might bridle at the notion of fifteen-minute cities, but it's not a new idea; town planning goes back to Ancient Athens, revived by town planners and architects in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Everything for the Deutscher Eisenbahner within a short stroll of his modern haus.

Zbąszynek merited another visit on my return from Zielona Góra. With half an hour in hand before my connection on to Warsaw, I did another tour, taking another route to catch more of this little town's unique atmosphere. Below: the modernist church, built for railwaymen and their families. Bungalows across the cobbled street - not the usual multi-story tenement housing one associates with Silesia or Pomerania, to the left, the church of the Apostles Peter and Paul.

Below: are we in the Netherlands? Is this Delft? No, Neu-Bentschen, now Zbąszynek - quite a remarkable Polish town. Ulica Kościelna.

Below: snapped from across the street, rows of bungalows with dormer-windowed attic rooms.

Below: the town hall which, as the Alte Rathaus, served its builders briefly. The Red Army entered Neu-Bentschen just 22 years later, without fight for it, so architecturally Zbąszynek has been well preserved, with no post-war fillings-in (plomby) to replace buildings destroyed by war.

Below: Pre-war railway map of western Poland. Zbąszynek/Neu Bentschen is the large dot on the border; Zbąszyn is the smaller dot to its east.

Below: Zbąszynek serves as an important junction, with rails radiating north, east, south and west. The lines to the south of the station serve as a bypass route for freight trains.

Below: so farewell then, Zbąszynek. Waiting for the Berlin-Warsaw express to arrive; on Platform 3 Track 5 a local all-stations service to Poznań is about to depart. Note the width of the platform, punctuated by a lawn and bushes. The building on Platform 2 served as a customs hall, where passengers had to open their suitcases. An attractive station, but one that needs an upgrade to bring it into line with the facilities expected in modern PKP stations.

A charming and, I daresay, unique Polish town with an interesting back story. 

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