Back on track for a rail binge-out

Well, after 47 consecutive days of human-spirituality prose, high time for a change. Lots has been going on rail-wise, so I'm going to unapologetically splurge on a whole load of rail-related photo content.

To Piaseczno for a family lunch at Restauracja Odjazd, the old waiting room at Piaseczno Miasto Wąskotorowa station (excellent food, service, ambience and price!). Below: the former terminal of the narrow-gauge line that once ran all the way to Nowe Miasto nad Pilicą, via Tarczyn and Grójec, the line today runs only as a tourist attraction from April to October, and then only as far as the outskirts of Tarczyn.

Below: now a museum run by volunteers, this little railway has great scope for potential. Especially with steam engines.

Below: looking west along the narrow-gauge line; this is Piaseczno Wiadukt station, a pair of platforms, serving as an interchange with the main line which runs in the cutting below the bridge visible beyond the platform ends.  If big plans are to come to pass, it may be extended out to Grójec as part of the CPK project – a modernised local feeder line for both the high-speed railway network and the central Polish airport. I'm sceptical about the latter, enthusiastic about the former.

Below: meanwhile in Chynów, folk are sceptical about the entire CPK project. Of the four variants of the line connecting the main Warsaw-Radom railway to the new airport, Chynów's local council voted down... all four. BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone = hardcore NIMBYism).

Below: the Radomiak limited-stop service to Skarżysko-Kamienna has been running late often over the past few weeks with delays of up to half an hour noted. Here comes the double-decker, engine to the fore, making up time between Czachówek Południowy and Chynów.

Below: the days are getting longer! Here's the Radomiak in early March in darkness whilst on time, loco pushing from the rear, passing through Sułkowice station without stopping, while a Warsaw-bound local train heads north.

Below: another seriously delayed Radomiak, pulling out (or rather being pushed out, as the engine is at the rear) of Chynów station last week. The all-stations train that it should have passed back at Czachówek Południowy is way ahead; the Radomiak will probably catch up and overtake it at Warka.

Below: five loco-hauled carriages forming the InterCity San express from Warsaw to Przemyśl between Sułkowice and Chynów stations. The journey still entails a change at Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski for a replacement bus service to Sandomierz. Work on modernising the line is massively delayed.

Below: the San express passing through Sułkowice a few days earlier.

Below: the San here, approaching Chynów station at speed, is formed of a mere three carriages, the engine has the old-style round headlamps which I find more aesthetically pleasing than the rectangular ones.

Below: I prefer the old loco-hauled expresses to look at, but prefer to travel in the new-style electric units because they are guaranteed to have a buffet car. These services link Olsztyn and Kraków, and the northbound and southbound services usually pass each other somewhere between Piaseczno and Warka if they're not running late. Here's the southbound Kolberg (left)  passing the northbound Sienkiewicz (right) near Chynów station.

Goods trains are a relative rarity on the Warsaw-Radom line south of the Czachówek junction; it was said on the Skyscraper City forum recently that there's not enough juice in the overhead cables to power heavy goods locos. And yet, I am starting to see them appear, not just diesels.

Below: a coupled pair of ET41 locos hauling an 'up' coal train wait at the passing platform at Chynów station for the 08:36 passenger train to town (the one I'll be travelling on) to pass through. While the driver is waiting, he takes the opportunity to conduct a visual check of his engines.

Below: a southbound Cemet cement train between Sułkowice and Chynów, again, electric hauled, this time by a modern PESA Gama 111Ed loco.

Below: cisterns on the Skierniewice-Łuków line pass under my Warsaw-bound train, Czachówek diamond.

Below: up the line from the end of the platform at Sułkowice, looking towards Czachówek Południowy.

Below: big news for the west of Warsaw: after God knows how long, the modernisation of the tram tracks along ulica Kasprzaka is complete. The day after the grand opening, I get off my train a stop early, and rather than take the Metro to the office from W-wa Młynów, I decide to take the tram from W-wa Wola. A mistake, as it turned out.

Below: tram jam outside Zajezdnia Wola (the Wola tram depot). As it's only the second day since the line along ul. Kasprzaka opened; the system evidently can't cope. My tram was stationary for about ten minutes; we were lucky as there's a tram stop on this side of the junction. Passengers in the trams you can see coming the other way were stuck for much longer.

Below: on the way home, however, all is well. The trams are now running smoothly, and I catch my train to Chynów. The sun is setting beyond distant Wola.

Below: Warsaw West (W-wa Zachodnia) is coming on; news this week is that tunnelling work under the station to create a pedestrian walkway (and later a tram track) has broken through to link the districts of Wola (to the left) to Ochota (to the right). In the meanwhile, all trains from Radom are still going round Warsaw rather than through its centre, and will continue doing so until work at W-wa Zachodnia is complete. Another eight months? Or another year and eight months?

Below: looking into town from the end of the platform of W-wa Służewiec station. Coming round the bend is an SKM train headed for Piaseczno. Szybka Kolej Miejska (rapid urban rail) is operated by Warsaw's city authorities as part of its integrated transport network. As such, it is comparable to London's Overground lines. On the footbridge in the distance, the words "MOMENTS LIKE THIS NEVER LAST" Another existentialist soul – perhaps the spiritual successor to the Master of Paddington, whose work "FAR AWAY IS CLOSE AT HAND IN IMAGES OF ELSEWHERE" was visible in similarly sized white lettering on a brick wall approaching that London terminus from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s.

Below: sunset at Chynów station just before the clocks went forward. From just after six pm to just after seven. This altering of clocks must stop. The advent of the programmable video-cassette recorder should have put an end to it; still this nonsense persists.
 

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UK's first town where Poles are a majority

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