As a regular train user, I was delighted to see a new app called Sprawny Peron, introduced by infrastructure operator PKP PLK. The app gives passengers the chance to report issues at railway stations. It logs your location to the nearest station and asks you to identify the problem by category (graffiti and other forms of vandalism, broken lighting, rubbish etc). You can take and upload up to four photos as well. Days after downloading the app, I used it to notify PKP PLK that all four station clocks at Sułkowice had stopped at twenty past five. The next time my train passed through Sułkowice, the clocks were working properly again. A similar story at Zalesie Górne station – although the clocks were showing the correct time, they were not illuminated at night. Problem duly reported via Sprawny Peron and fixed.
Closer to home there's a serious problem that's not being fixed. In the passenger tunnel linking platforms at Chynów station, there's a water leak (don't know if it's groundwater or a burst pipe, but the problem gets worse after rainfall). Water is leaking through the electrical system, dripping (sometimes pouring!) from the tunnel loudspeaker, lighting fixture and CCTV camera installation. I guess this is a danger (I'm no electrician, but wouldn't brushing against the stream of water emanating from a source of live 220V current give a shock?). Below: the tunnel, the leak. And over the weekend, a vandal has scrawled graffiti on a sign, confirming the broken-windows theory.
The phenomenon of the leaking wall first occurred in the autumn of 2023. A few days after I first noticed it, I reported the situation to the woman in the ticket office (open Mon-Fri from 04:30-16:00, Sat 05:30-14:15. Closed Sundays and public holidays). She replied that she knew very well about this, and that she had passed it on as soon as it was first reported, but that no one as yet had reacted. The leaking wall continued leaking for months. The fix was evidently inadequate, as it began to leak again a few weeks ago, this time when anyone with Sprawny Peron on their phone could notify the infrastructure operator.
Below: the light fitting has ceased to work (for a while it shone bravely on despite being flooded).
Here's the problem; I have reported the leaking wall eight or nine times already over the past six weeks or so – zero reaction. No feedback, no possibility to connect to the administrator in any other way than by making yet another report the same way. Literally, a dumb app. Not good enough.
But it made me think – why were earlier problems fixed?
A linguistic point. The word sprawny is translated by Google as 'efficient', 'dexterous' or 'adroit'. Not so in this case. None of the translations of sprawny offered get it right. It means 'working' as opposed to not working, its antonym, niesprawny, means 'unserviceable', 'out of action', 'not working. Google Translate gives 'unserviceable' as nieużyteczny, but that literally means 'useless'.
This time last year:
Anatomy of a Moment
This time two years ago:
Ego – self-consciousness – pure consciousness
This time six years ago:
The Day the Forecasters Got It Wrong
This time seven years ago:
Carlo Rovelli's The Order of Time
This time 11 years ago:
W-wa Wola became W-wa Zachodnia Platform 8 two years ago today
This time 12 years ago:
From yellow to white – dandelions go to seed
[2025: this happened three weeks ago]
This time 14 years ago:
The good topiarist
This time 15 years ago:
Wettest. May. Ever.
This time 17 years ago:
Blackpool-in-the-Tatras
[My last visit to Zakopane – I've not been back since]
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