Warsaw railway interstitials

There's the place you live. Then there's your workplace. And then there are the so-called 'third spaces' – public places where you can meet and mingle - cafés, parks, squares, bars, etc. And between these three typologies, we have the interstitial spaces, the liminal places, through which you merely pass through (unless you happen to work there), leaving only your shadow.

There's a specific atmosphere that I've always felt about Warsaw's two city-centre railway stations – Warszawa Śródmieście, for suburban trains, and Warszawa Centralna, for long-distance trains. (Warszawa Centralna also known as Dworzec Centralny, and in English, Warsaw Central.)  A sense of unease, mystery, disquiet. The two are linked by a system of tunnels which goes on beyond Centralna to the light-rail terminus, Warszawa Śródmieście WKD.

I've written and photographed these interstitial places before, but this week I have passed through this way three times, and so they are worth a revisit with a blog post. When it's cold and slippery at street level, underground it's warmer and dry. It's possible to walk half a mile along the platforms and appreciate the unique atmosphere offered by these interstitial spaces. Passengers tend to cluster around the middle of the platforms, but the far ends see little human activity.

Below: although no Radom-line trains currently call at W-Śródmieście station, I walk this underground way between Metro Centrum and W-wa Centralna. Although it's just gone 9am and the rush hour is tailing off, the station is almost empty.

Below: the stairs leading up to street level. At the top - ulica Emilii Plater that separates the suburban and the inter-city stations, but we'll be crossing underneath instead.

Below: stairs from the underground passage leading up to platform level, W-wa Śródmieście. At the top – ticket machines, green to the left for Koleje Mazowieckie, yellow to the right for Warsaw urban transport. What could lurk behind those store-cupboard doors in the foreground?

Below: the tunnel connecting the four platforms of Warszawa Central and W-wa Śródmieście. The light temperature from the neon tubes is unnatural, casting a chill uncertainty upon the scene. Modern signage at least provides some reassurance that all is not lost. Unmarked doorways in the passage add to the sense of unease.

Below: eye-level with the platform floor, W-wa Centralna. In the distance, an east-bound Pendolino train awaits departure from Track 3 Platform 2. I've written before about rail infrastructure operator PKP PLK's obstinacy in platform numeration. Here at Centralna it's not too bad, but in Poznań I've missed trains because I'm looking for Track 5 Platform 2 rather than Track 2 Platform 5, a long way off. A mention is needed of architect Arseniusz Romanowicz, who designed the station in 1975, along with most of the stations along the transversal line, from Warsaw East to Warsaw West and all points in between.

Below: from the top of these stairs, take a nose around into the tunnel. The long-distance lines run east from here, merging from eight tracks down to two before emerging at the top of the Warsaw escarpment by W-wa Powiśle station (which InterCity trains bypass). This is the Tunel średnicowy (transversal tunnel), a place with its own mystery – the urban legend of a secret spur between this tunnel and the basement levels of the Palace of Culture, just to the north of the line. 

Below: another urban legend - the ramp that led down to what was a secret underground kebab factory. Or storage room. There's a ramp like this at the eastern ends of Platforms 1 and 2 and at the western ends of Platforms 3 and 4. What goes on down below these days remains shrouded in mystery.

Below: now approaching half past nine in the morning; the distant lights of a Dart train that's soon to depart for Wrocław. Note how empty the far end of the platform is, and how far to the middle section of the station where the trains stop.

Below: view from the western end of Platform 3; in the distance, daylight, and the single platform of Warszawa Śródmieście WKD station.

Up some more stairs, into another passage, round the corner and down a ramp – and you arrive at W-wa Śródmieście WKD (below). Normally, the terminus station of Warszawskie Koleje Dojazdowe, a light railway separate from the PKP network that extends south-west to Grodzisk Mazowiecki. Normally, because services currently terminate two stops back at W-wa Reduta Ordona – or they would if the railway's workers weren't out on strike.

And finally, looking back at the deserted platform from the stairs at the far end. From here to the eastern exit of W-wa Śródmieście PKP suburban station is over one kilometre of walkways, tunnels, stairs and escalators beneath street level (though here, daylight peeps through).

An interesting alternative to Warsaw's city streets.

More photos from Warszawa Centralna from 2010 here.

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Above: Rondo ONZ One, as seen from ulica Emilii Plater, looking down ul. Pańska, which runs all the way west to ul. Towarowa, and is truncated by the building you see in front of you. Incidentally, rare is the Polish street name that always uses first name and surname; it's usually surname only.

Below: The Palace of the Youth, on the north side of Stalin's Palace of Culture, facing ul. Świętokrzyska.

Below: my favourite stretch of Świętokrzyska, where the two competing shops, both selling kitchenware, compete for the same clients. If one hasn't got exactly what you're looking for, the other one well may have. And note the trees that now line the street; they were planted last autumn. Can you spot Ziggy Stardust? He's in several of my photos of this street...

I quite often see film shoots happening in central Warsaw; here's one on the corner of Świętokrzyska and Emilii Plater.

Left: lovely neon, marking the current location of the museum of modern art (Muzeum Sztuki Współczesnej). To the left, a sheet-metal fence marks the site of the old Emilia building, former home of the museum and before that the location of Stołeczne Przedsiębiorstwo Handlu Wewnętrznego 'Meble Emilia' (The Capital City Enterprise of Internal Trade 'Furniture Emilia')


Below: down underground, looking into the transversal railway tunnel. This is the main line tracks running east from Warsaw Central station (W-wa Centralna). In the distance an InterCity Pendolino train crosses over the points.

Below: also looking east along the transversal railway tunnel, but this is the suburban line. The long-distance tracks lie beyond the wall to the left. Photo taken from the end of platform 3, W-wa Śródmieście station.

Two London Stock Exchange FTSE 250-listed companies are present in the new Sezam building (opened June 2018). They are recruitment firm Hays, and Spaces, part of IWG (International Workplace Group, better known under its old brand, Regus). Between the footpath (foreground) and ul. Marszalkowska (beyond which is Sezam), there will soon appear a new 20-story office building, Central Point, right outside my office window (to the left of this frame). Fitting, as I spent years working at Centre Point in London.

If you think Warsaw looks good now - wait until the Christmas lights come on later this week!

Bonus shot: Three generations of Warsaw architecture

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Late-November pictorial round-up

Some pics that didn't make previous posts, but which merit a viewing anyway. Below: Plac Hallera, Praga Północ. An overlooked piece of socialist realist architecture, dating back to 1957, by which time the style (and the ideological direction which spawned it) were passe. Until 1990, this square was named after some communist whom Stalin had murdered in 1938, but who was rehabilitated under Khrushchev.

Below: round the back of W-wa Zachodnia (Warsaw West) railway station, rows of social wagons housing workers on the big infrastructure project that will be renovating W-wa Główna station, further east. The skyline of Warsaw is rising ever higher...

Below: approaching W-wa Główna - this was the former terminus for commuter trains coming in from the west. It is being rebuilt to serve the same purpose during the planned reconstruction of the transversal lines crossing underneath Central Warsaw. Behind it rise the new buildings around Rondo Daszyńskiego.

Below: 'piwo z ranka, jak śmietanka' - a morning beer is like cream. This is one of the bars in the underground passage linking bus and train stations at Zachodnia. For some reason, one is not prohibited from smoking here, so a unique and nostalgic atmosphere for anyone liking that smell - beer and cigarettes.

Touch and go for my trip to Kraków the other week - I could see my connecting train from W-wa Jeziorki to W-wa Zachodnia was delayed by well over 20 minutes. So plan B - take bus to Metro, Metro to Centrum, walk (or rather run) from there to W-wa Centralna. Below: my train , standin' over there, on Track 2, Platform 3, about to depart at 08:45. It's 08:40, so I made it.

Below: Czachówek - where the Warsaw-Radom line crosses the Skierniewice-Łuków line.

Below: further down along the Warsaw-Radom line, Sułkowice station. Now the new 'up' line has been completed, the old 'down' line is being ripped up.

A beautiful day on the działka.

Below: heading back to town from Jakubowizna, I pass this house, "shining hard and bright/'cross this dark highway".

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Finding Kilometre Zero

All the main railway lines that radiate out of Warsaw count back the kilometres from the capital. I live on the Warsaw-Radom line, my nearest station, W-wa Jeziorki station is on Kilometre 18, while Chynów station, the nearest to my działka in Jakubowizna, is on Kilometre 42. Heading east out of Warsaw, the border with Belarus, beyond Terespol, stands on Kilometre 211, while going the other way, the border with Germany can be found on Kilometre 478. Add those last two, and you can see that 688km of rails span Poland from east to west.

But where is Kilometre Zero? Kilometre Zero in Madrid, for example, is on Puerta del Sol. Ancient Rome had its Milliarium Aureum. Many cities have kilometre zeros for roads; I'm more interested in rail. So where in Warsaw is the kilometre zero for Polish rail? I puzzled over this online, unable to find a definitive answer, but in the end it turned out to be obvious.

It is, of course, at Warsaw Moniuszko Station. What! You've never heard of Warsaw Moniuszko Station? I must say, neither have I until today. I've been there hundreds of times, but I've not heard of it. It's better known as Warszawa Centralna/Dworzec Centralny, but then Warsaw Okęcie Airport was also renamed for a composer, albeit some while back. The new name 'Moniuszko' was bestowed upon Dworzec Centralny in January this year -  an occasion that somehow bypassed me. Call me 'uncultured' if you will, but I can't hum a single bar written by Moniuszko. He did write Straszny Dwór (which Google Translate renders as 'scary mansion'), that I do know.

Here we are then, at Warsaw Central (W-wa Centralna) station, or if you prefer, Dworzec Centralny imienia Stanisława Moniuszki. Some 50m to the east of the middle of the platforms, close to the foot of the main escalators that lead down from the central passage spanning the eight tracks. On a white rectangle, clearly marked in black, is 0.0 (below)

The four platforms, each serving two tracks, are 400m long; walk out towards the western end of the platforms you will find Kilometre 0.2 (below). And if you look closely from your train, you will see 0.3 inside the tunnel just after entering it.

Logically, equidistant from Km 0.2 and Km 0,0 there is a Km 0.1 marker (below); they are 100m apart.

And going the other way, eastwards beyond Km 0.0, not quite at the end of the platforms, is another Km 0.1 (below) - but this time measured eastwards. Note that like at Km 0.2 not a soul here.

So now we know where Km 0.0 is, we can look for kilometre markers along the main lines (lesser lines will count up from wherever they start). Below: Km 12.7, south of W-wa Okęcie station.

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Times pass, things go, things remain

At the western end of ul. Świętokrzyska, the block of flats is being torn down to be replaced by the 155m-tall PHN/City Tower. Construction begins next year. Communist-era flats are coming down across Warsaw; their presence in the centre of the capital are de facto social housing, a reason why so many elderly people live right in the middle of town (something unthinkable in, say, London). While social diversity may be judged a good thing, these buildings are rigid with asbestos. This particular block was built in the mid-1960s for foreigners, and was home for many Western firms that set up offices in Warsaw in the early 1990s. This view, with the top of Spektrum tower (formerly TPSA Tower) reminds of Marineville from the 1960s children's TV series, Stingray. Photo taken from the bus stop outside Costa Coffee, Rondo 1 on 4 October. All pictures in this post: Nikon CoolPix A.

Below: update, photo taken two weeks later on 18 October. Here's the progress in the demolition for you...

An InterCity locomotive with interesting heritage. This is a retro-liveried EP07 at Warsaw Central station. Most InterCity EP07 locos are painted blue and grey like the carriages, but this one's paint scheme harks back to the 1980s. Back in 1962, Poland bought 20 electric locomotives from English Electric, serving PKP as EU06 (Elektryczna Uniwersalna 6), along with a licence to build more locally. These were the  EU07 series, built from 1963 on. Many were converted to EP07s (Elektryczna Pasażerska 7), with more powerful motors and different gearing appropriate to stop-start passenger work. Originally built in 1987 as EU07-442. it was converted to EP07-442 in 2003.

Rarely does one see a mode of transport that's nearly 140 years old - but here in Warsaw I chanced upon a penny-farthing based on original parts from a 1878 German bicycle.. I stopped and had a chat with the friendly owner, who told me that the Polish for penny-farthing is bicykl, while the Polish for bicycle is rower, from Rover, the British brand that had two wheels of equal size, the rear one chain-driven by pedals. Before Rover became such a language-changing hit in Poland, the word welocyped meant any human-powered two-wheeler without chain drive. So a bicykl is a welocyped, but a rower isn't!

Which reminds me that last week saw the 50th anniversary of the first airing of British TV of the cult series, The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGooghan. Shot in Portmeirion, the fictitious village featured in the series had as its logo a penny-farthing.

Left: Finally, the passing of time does not bypass me. On my way south to do some real-estate scouting - I'm looking for a działka to buy. Today, for the first time ever, I got a old folk's discount on train travel. All 35% of it. So instead of paying nearly 14zł for the return ticket from W-wa Jeziorki to Ustanówek, I paid 8.80zł. Neither did the conductor on the way out nor the ticket inspector on the way back want to check my ID to ensure that I wasn't lying about my age. Haven't done that since I was 17!

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Early winter travels - Warsaw-Kraków-Poznań-Warsaw

Friday morning, after a night of wet snow. On my way to town, trying to keep my shoes and trousers clean in these conditions (below) is not easy. Fortunately, a kindly neighbour offers me a lift towards the Metro.

Train to town, and before long I'm in the city centre. Below: the Palace of Culture rises above the snow-covered trees along ul. Świętokrzyska.

After a few hours in the office, I have to catch a train to Kraków for our Annual Dinner there. The train is a TLK service, which means no buffet car. There's a dense crowd on the platform a W-wa Centralna station. The train pulls in - notice the snow on the roof. Many of the passengers are holidaymakers, judging by their bulging rucksacks, hiking boots and trekking poles.

The train journey itself was jolly. The next compartment was occupied by students with guitars, who sang all the way to Kraków. The lady wheeling the snacks trolley was particularly friendly, and I managed to keep hunger at bay given that I hadn't had time for any lunch. I shared the compartment with two American tourists, a bit older than me, who must have got a good impression of Poland - the young man who helped them lift their baggage onto the racks, the fluently bilingual conductor, and the singing from next door. People were sitting in the corridors, but this was a good-natured train.

After the dinner at the Kraków Technology Park, it was time to catch the night train - to Poznań. Why Poznań? There was no direct train back from Kraków to Warsaw; hotels in Kraków are expensive. A night train to Poznań and an InterCity train from Poznań to Warsaw works out much cheaper than a hotel in Kraków and train to Warsaw.

I was impressed by the night train - new rolling stock. The toilet was wheelchair-friendly and included a shower cubicle; the compartments were more ergonomic, with a slide-out ladder to the upper bunks. However, the bed was harder than in the older night trains. As with my train to Koszalin last week, there was bottled water, a chocolate muffin and a flannel-and-soap set for each traveller.

The train I boarded is called the Orion - Poland's longest night train service, covering 884 km from Przemyśl in south-eastern Poland, near the Ukrainian border, to Szczecin in north-west Poland. The Orion leaves Przemyśl at 18:17 and arrives in Szczecin at 09:26 the next day - a journey of 15 hours and nine minutes. It calls at Rzeszów, Kraków, Katowice, Opole, Wrocław and Poznań among the 34 stations along the way. This train thus links seven Polish provincial capitals.

My journey was less than half of the whole route - just 429 km, Kraków to Poznań. I slept well after five glasses of wine with the dinner, and was awakened by the conductor half an hour before the train arrived in Poznań.

After a petit déjeuner à l'Ecosse, there was a few minutes to grab some shots of dawn over Poznań. Below: looking east - the PKS bus station under the Avenida shopping mall (left), and the Novotel Poznań Centrum mid-frame.

Below: looking west the view along the Most Dworcowy bridge towards the Poznań international trade fair building. The socialist-realist spire dates from the mid-1950s and gives this vista a old-school communist air.

Below: looking north - the original Art Deco tower at the north-east corner of the Poznań trade fair building, which dates back to 1929. During WW2, the premises became a Nazi aircraft factory, and thus subject to allied bombing. But this tower survived. To the left, the Sheraton hotel, with neon signs for Centra batteries behind it.

The sun shone all the way to Warsaw, a chance to get some good snaps from the train. The Nikon Coolpix P900 is not a quick-draw camera, it takes a while to switch on and get the thing to zoom and focus - traditional DSLRs are much faster. I missed a couple of shots - wild deer in fields by the tracks in particular. But this, below, is the P900 in its element; sunshine, stability plus a subject where the foreshortening effect of the massive zoom plays to good effect. My train to Warsaw pulls into Poznań Główny station.

Agriculture, electricity and the church (below). Just about visible are three wild deer sitting at the far end of the field in the middle distance (click to enlarge).

Passing Konin, which I'd visited in September, the chimneys of its power station belching steam into the atmosphere (below).

Below: Dobrzelin, just before Żychlin, near Kutno - the Polski Cukier factory.

My journey to Warsaw took longer than expected. 28.8km from W-wa Wschodnia, at Błonie station, the train stopped, and did not move for another 20 minutes. There were two failed attempts to start in, on the third it finally moved. So I missed my connecting train at W-wa Zachodnia to Jeziorki, but took a SKM train to the airport, walked from there to W-wa Okęcie station in good time for the next homeward train. Below: view from the end of platform 6 at W-wa Zachodnia, looking east towards town. The SKM train is heaving into view.

I enjoy train travel and prefer it to going by car. A long train trip like this is a pleasure.

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