Poppies in bloom, Jeziorki

For the last few weeks, poppies have been blooming across Jeziorki. They are at their best in mid-June, fading by mid-July. Below: a field on ul. Trombity with cornflowers vying for attention with poppies

Below: looking across towards Zamienie, ul. Dawidowska in the distance, ul. Kórnicka (just a path on this side of the railway tracks) to the right.

Below: the trackside is resplendent with a profusion of poppies and other wildflowers. Looking south towards W-wa Jeziorki station.

Below: a town-bound Koleje Mazowieckie train from Radom, the modernised EN57 stock.

Below: another Koleje Mazowieckie train passes the other way, heading for Skarżysko-Kamienna.

Below: taken last Saturday around the same spot.

Below: taken on Tuesday 10 June from the far end of the platform on W-wa Jeziorki station, looking towards Nowa Iwiczna. A fair sprinkling of poppies as far as the eye can see.

This time four years ago:
Historical photos of work in progress on the S79

This time seven years ago:
The year nears its zenith

Polish railways in winter, 2014

On my way to work yesterday, I saw a story on the CityINFO screens on the Metro that a train had reached its destination 1,200 minutes late. Checking this in Gazeta Wyborcza, it turned out that indeed two trains had arrived a full 20 hours late - one from Gdynia to Wrocław, the other from Warsaw to Jelenia Góra. Twenty hours delay on journeys that normally take 13 hours and 14 hours respectively.

Yesterday, at the conference we were organising, the keynote speaker arrived 55 minutes into the event, having been delayed on a train (not so dramatically) from Kraków. Delegates from Katowice also arrived late (one phoning that his train was still standing on the platform at Katowice 45 minutes after it was due to depart). At this icy time of year, it's a risky business organising national conferences. On Friday, I'm due to speak at a breakfast meeting in Poznań, necessitating a 05:11 departure from Jeziorki. I am worried that I too may not make it on time.

Polish railways and winter together produce a binary outcome, zero or one. The 'one' is that everything runs on time and Poles are proud that unlike the UK where an inch of snow brings the infrastructure to a standstill, here its business as usual. The 'zero' is that everything goes wrong. This week, the latter has tended to predominate. Below: my train last Friday, 17 January. It's an EN57 electric multiple unit, the oldest of which have seen over half a century of service. As it began pulling out of Okęcie station, something went wrong and it came to a halt. The guard walked up and down the length of the train, trying to work out what was up, opened some valve, tapped something with a hammer - and after 12 minutes standing, we moved on.

The old stock breaks down often but it can often be fixed with a man wielding a hammer. New trains break down infrequently, but when they do, they are immobilised until a new thyristor unit can be flown in from Switzerland. Unless, as has been happening this week, the whole network collapses, as a result of freezing rain (see yesterday's post) brings down power lines.

The recently-appointed 'superminister' responsible for infrastructure and regional development, Elżbieta Biekówska was asked by journalist Kamil Durczok what she had to say to passengers of the train from Przemyśł to Szczecin that arrived 410 minutes late. Her reply would become an internet meme within hours. "Sorry, taki mamy klimat" ("Sorry, that's the climate we have"). PKP announced that across all of Poland yesterday, out of 4,000 services, 82 ('only 82'? or 'as many as 82') arrived more than an hour late. How many arrived up to 59 minutes late, we weren't told.

Below: screenshot of online timetable of services between W-wa Jeziorki and the city centre. Note the green ticks on the first two services. This means they're running to time. This is a huge advance over the old days. Especially when you have this timetable on your smartphone in the form of the Bilcom app. Standing on the platform, I can see exactly where the train is. But while the first two trains are punctually arriving at all stations towards their destinations, the next three services are shown with an exclamation mark within a red circle. The key at the bottom of the page explains that because of freezing snow across six voivodships, trains can be delayed by up to 120 minutes.

Yesterday, this pink panel at the bottom of the page read '... up to 300 minutes delay', with ten voivodships affected. Things are looking up.

This time last year:
Around Warsaw, in the snow

This time two years ago:
Music of the Trees

This time three years ago:
Studniówka - a hundred days before the exams

This time four years ago:
It's all in the mind - but where's that?

This time five years ago:
Roztopy - the big melt-down

This time six years ago:
The year's most depressing day

Classic Jeziorki

Let's forget about politics, religion, biology and philosophy for a while and take a walk to the end of ul. Trombity, cross the railway tracks to catch that Jeziorki klimat, that mid-spring atmosphere that made me want to blog about my home suburb in the first place. The trees all seem to be in bloom. Below: ul. Kórnicka - the section between ul. Trombity and the railway, which is a footpath rather than a street.

Below: a Koleje Mazowieckie EN57 three-car set heading into town, the KM livery of green, white and yellow reflecting the colours of the landscape.

Below: across the tracks. A little spring rain and the fields are in flood. A KM train heads south towards Piaseczno and Radom. Further away from the railway line, and the air is full of the sound of skylarks' song. So many, indeed, that I'm wondering whether such numbers are sustainable.

The closure for the whole summer of Okęcie airport's Runway 15/33 for maintenance means  that planes are now using Runway 11/27, and fly in from over Ursynów. This affords a fine view of Warsaw's skyline as a backdrop to the aircraft on final approach. In the foreground, the more rural construction of Dawidy. Below: a Ryanair Boeing 737-800 comes in to land.

Jeziorki is a great place to live, rus in suburbe, countryside in the suburbs, yet well connected by public transport with the city and by air with the outside world.

From the open door

The double-decker trains have all but disappeared from the Koleje Mazowieckie services to town. All the trains I take to work and back are the old EN57 stock, the oldest examples of which will be celebrating their 50th birthday this year. Some have been modernised and have push-button door opening. The older ones' doors are opened along the entire train by the guard, whether someone's using them or not. This is uncomfortable at -15C, especially seeing as many of the internal sliding doors are broken and stuck in the open position. At every station, a blast of cold air enters the compartment.

Above: W-wa Jeziorki station and its demolished shelter. A frosty morn; note absence of cars parked up along ul. Gogolińska. Either the cars wouldn't start, or their drivers preferred to face the jams in the warmth of their vehicles rather than brave the cold trains.

Above: W-wa Okęcie station, and behind it the long-to-be unfinished S79 at the junction for the airport. People who alight here tend to work at the airport rather than passengers, for despite the name, this station's one and half kilometres from the international terminal. The new station serving the airport will be ready... May? December? Who knows.

Left: W-wa Zachodnia station. A sky of girders and pylons, a God-awful place lacking signage, proper information or decent amenities. A great place however for newcomers to Poland to get the feel of post-communism; how that system wrecked any sense of pride in public service.

Still, on the credit side, Koleje Mazowieckie have been running very well this winter (so far) given the intensity of the frosts. With the exception of one journey home that took double the usual 50 minutes, trains have been running with only the slightest delays, although over-crowding is still a problem during the morning peak.

Kidnapped by Koleje Mazowiecki

For the first time since the introduction of the new railway timetables last Saturday week, I chanced a ride to work on Koleje Mazowieckie. Since the snows began, the performance of Poland's railways has been dire. My experiences so far this winter have been of cancellations and delays longer than the usual journey time. The introduction of the new timetable is usually entirely virtual, since trains keep running (on my line anyway) to the old timetable for weeks regardless.

And so it was this morning. The advertised 07:38 train arrived at 07:54 (i.e. as per old time table). Just a three-car set of EN-57 rolling stock (above) - totally inadequate for the jam of passengers trying to board. But by W-wa Służewiec I manage to get a seat.

So engrossed was I in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, that I fail to notice that the train pulled into W-wa Centralna rather than W-wa Śródmieście... The train emerged from the Tunel Średnicowy on the wrong track, passing W-wa Powiśle without stopping. Soon, I am being whisked, against my will, across the Vistula (below).

The train continues past W-wa Stadion and arrives (no doubt on time according to the old schedule) at W-wa Wschodnia, the eastern gateway station. I look round to see what's happening. I see the following sign (below) and challenge my bilingual readers to translate this a) literally and b) usefully into English.

The cause of this notice soon becomes clear; the station is undergoing a remont. I use the Polish word remont rather than 'repair', 'renovation', 'refurbishment', 'remodelling', 'restoration' (or one we saw last week in the Old Town, 'revitalization'), because it so direct and to the point. Indeed, I urge my English-speaking readers to start using this word in English - it is so useful. Which of the many different possible translations into English of remont most accurately captures the flavour of what's happening at the station right now? You'd need to be a consulting engineer to come up with the one English word that precisely defines this type of work. But remont - we all know what it means!

Above: Warszawa Wschodnia station undergoing its remont. Ticket booths are outside in the open air, most of the facilities are closed. The outside clock (click to enlarge photo) has stopped; it says 05:45. Trains are running late or very late. Finally I board a west-bound train and 50 minutes later, I'm back at W-wa Powiśle, and late for work.

Powiśle, of a winter's morning

Above: My train (the one on the left) arrives from W-wa Jeziorki at Powiśle less than ten minutes late. Better than the train home, which was running 45 minutes late. The EN57 stock is well past its sell-by date and prone to breakdowns in the cold weather.

Large numbers of people hanging around bus stops suggest that it will be quicker walking the three stops to work than waiting - it was. And visually more rewarding. Above: ul. Kruczkowskiego, edge of the Śmigły-Rydz park.

Above: Fieldfare (kwiczoł) just outside our office on ul. Fabryczna. Thanks to Ewa and Mariola for spotting it. A reason for going everywhere with your camera.

Winter on the tracks

Heading north to see what's happening on the 'Elka' - the L-shaped road being the S79 down from Sasanki to the south of the airport, then across to Puławska - I walk alongside the railway tracks.

Above: Osóbka southbound for Radom. The nearest (unelectrified) track is the one that runs from Okęcie sidings to Siekierki power station, used a few times a day by coal trains.

Above: Somewhere between the crossings at ul. Baletowa and ul. Karnawał. Right: Signals at the approach to the Okęcie sidings.

All along the line where open fields adjoin the tracks, I note that the snow-drift fences have not been put up. They should act as a barrier in case of heavy snowfall and strong winds; they're still stacked up by the trackside (below).

A trio of diesel locos used for hauling coal, an SM42-714 (left) heading two SM48s with different pattern cabs (SM48-117 in the middle, SM48-087 at the end).

Czachówek junction

A day later, I returned to Czachówek to take some snaps of the junction. I arrived in good time to photograph the Pilawa-bound train we took a day earlier (above) as it turns off the Radom line onto the Skierniewice to Łuków line (PKL line no. 12, which runs west to east). Just once a day does an east-bound passenger train come this way.

Above: From the forested triangle of land to the north of Line No. 12, a photo of a Warsaw-bound train. Standing here, I am aware of trains moving through the forest in all directions; I can tell where they're coming from, but not where they're going. Below: One of the most interesting trains passes this way, the Vltava, the Moskva Belarusskaya to Praha Hl. n.* service comes through Czachówek (some time after 6pm).
This exotic, one-a-day service, which takes 31hrs 23mins, leaves Moscow at quarter to midnight local time, goes through Viasma, Smolensk, Orsha, then through Belarus stopping at Minsk, on into Poland, calling at Terespol, Biała Podlaska, Łuków, Pilawa, Włoszczowa, Katowice and Zebrzydowice, before crossing the border into the Czech Republic, and arriving in Prague just after 5am. Surely one of Central and Eastern Europe's great train journeys.
The return train* passes through Czachówek around 9am each morning on its way back to Moscow. These trains are made up of Russian, Czech and Polish carriages and (for the Polish stretch) are hauled by Polish EU07 or EP07 electric engines. The gauge changes at Terespol, where broad-gauge bogies are swapped for standard gauge ones.

Meanwhile, within the forest at Czachówek junction, I can hear the rumble of yet another train. It's heading my way, but will it swing north or continue east? It's a CTL Logistics tanker train, and it carries on straight, down the line to Pilawa and Łuków.

Above: The Skierniewice-Łuków line, looking east. Built in the early 1950s, it had, as any infrastructure investment did in those day, a primarily military purpose - getting Soviet tanks west, bypassing Warsaw, that nest of potential spies and saboteurs. Today the line is under-used, at least the new Warsaw-Góra Kalwaria-Pilawa service will put some of this track to good purpose.
The line's history is fascinating, told here (in Polish). At a time when Stalin was planning to goad the west into war in Korea, building this 100-mile strategic military rail connection of was of utmost importance. No other piece of railway infrastructure investment in Poland, other than the electrification of the Warsaw-Katowice line, was given greater priority during the period of the Six-Year Plan.
(* a dead link means the timetable's changed or the service no longer runs)

W-wa Jeziorki to Góra Kalwaria - by train

Railway lines disappear, services get axed, networks shrink. So it's wonderful to see new services emerging! This is the first weekend of trains between Warsaw and Góra Kalwaria via Czachówek, so I decided to see how it goes. The new service is operated by Koleje Mazowiecki, the suburban rail operator, which is 51% owned by the province of Mazowsze and 49% by PKP. Since its formation in 2004, it has generally improved services, rolling stock and cleanliness of stations.

Why not, said a clever member of the Board, why not re-build the railway station and run trains into Warsaw and back, so that local people can get to work and home again in less time? And so a plan was prepared and made public in January; at last, on last Monday 1 June, the first scheduled passenger-carrying service ran into Warsaw.

The idea is great - masses of commuters living in Góra Kalwaria, some 30km from the centre of Warsaw, spend three or four hours a day stuck in traffic jams on their way to and from work.

Czachówek Wschodni: quiet Saturday afternoon at the station
I'm mentioned Czachówek a few times; it is a railway junction some 10 miles/16km south of Jeziorki. It's noted for having a couple of hundred inhabitants and four railway stations. Two were out of use, though with the new rail service, Czachówek Wschodni has been re-opened. By swinging off the Warsaw-Radom line onto the Skierniewice-Łuków line using the north-to-east spur at Czachówek, a new transport possibility emerges.

The new route swings east at the railway junction
I took the train from W-wa Jeziorki which departed at 16:15 and arrived at Góra Kalwaria shortly before five. The train was turned around, and at 17:21 it set off for Warsaw, arriving back at W-wa Jeziorki just after six. My return ticket for the 50km round trip was... 6zł 70gr., a promotional price (the ticketing machines have not yet been set up to include Góra Kalwaria.

Góra Kalwaria: the train's longer than the platform. Days later, a shelter's been erected here.

With good promotion, the people of Góra Kalwaria will abandon their cars and the PKS buses in favour of the rail service. If it takes off, the local authorities will run more trains, which can only be a good thing. So fingers crossed.

On the timetable I noticed an interesting one-a-day service - Warsaw to Pilawa via Czachówek and Góra Kalwaria. Leaving W-wa Jeziorki at 18:55, it arrives in Pilawa, 50km away, across the Vistula, at five past eight. But what to do in Pilawa? The return train leaves Pilawa at 04:40 the following morning and arrives back at W-wa Jeziorki an hour and ten minutes later.

This time last year:
Fields turning into housing estates

Rail links to town are improving

I seem to be using Koleje Mazowieckie more and more often to get into town, and I'm not alone; there seems to be increasing passenger traffic on this line. I'd attribute this to three reasons - new trains, new stations, and growing frustration with korki (traffic jams - literally, 'corks').

New trains: the infamous Bombardier double deckers that were 'too tall for the tunnel' (above, pictured at ul. Karnawał level crossing). As a result the all-stations-from-Radom no longer stops at W-wa Ochota or Smródmieście, but these new carriages are wonderful compared to the rotten old EN-57 elektryczka stock. All of a sudden passengers feel well treated, 21st Century citizens, not communist riff-raff. Below, the Stadler FLIRT (Fast Light Innovative Regional Train) departing from W-wa Jeziorki. Not enough knee-room, but even so, a huge improvement. The old EN-57s (warmed over for the nth remake) are still in service. You can never tell which train will take you to town.

Two new stations have appeared in recent months - W-wa Żwirki i Wigury* and W-wa Aleje Jerozolimskie by the Daimler building.

As you can see from the above picture, the station itself leaves much to be desired. Britain's personal injury lawyers would have a wonderful time - look at those uneven paving slabs. There's only one sign saying "W-wa Jeziorki". The one timetable on the station is unreadable due to early morning condensation under the plastic cover. The pricing is opaque at best. (Single 7 zlotys, network single, 4 zlotys). Other prices are bizarre - 8.51 zł, 6.37 zł; the conductor is busy fiddling with small change and working out complex fare structures from unmanned suburban stations. Meanwhile those at the back of the train travel for free, knowing the harrassed conductor will never get round to checking them as he's too busy hunting for two-grosz coins.

* Żwirko and Wigura - Poland's Alcock and Brown, after whom the main road to the airport is named.

This time last year:
Lovely autumn weather continues
Dull day, lovely day

To Warsaw in style, at a leisurely pace

I turned up to Łódź Fabryczna station and discovered to my delight that I'd be returning to Warsaw in a brand-new train (above). Note the contrast with the elderly EN-57 stock to its right. Any hopes of a speedy return home were dashed by a quick glance at the timetable; two hours and 24 minutes to cover the 85 miles. That's an average speed of just 35 miles an hour! The distance between Warsaw and Łódz is the same as that between London and Rugby. The West Coast Main Line service would cover that distance in a mere 50 minutes - back in the 1970s!

Once the track has been modernised and adapted for higher speeds, we are promised (by 2010) that the journey time will be reduced to 60 minutes. Until then, anyone travelling between the two cities has a choice between two and half hours by rail or a similar time by road.

At least the train is smart, and with clean toilets. And an LED indicator telling you that you're averaging 30 miles an hour.

UPDATE October 2008 - Łódź-W-Wa Zachodnia journey time cut to 1hr 24mins. That LED now reads 125km/h much of the way.

Okęcie dusk

Boy was it cold out this evening! I drove down to Okęcie, over the cart tracks and unmade roads to the railway sidings, just under the final approach as the planes go 'over the fence', seconds before touching down. Arriving at ul. Karnawal just before sunset, I caught this Alitalia Express Embraer ERJ-170-100LR (EI-DFL) inbound to land. Incidentally, I note that ailing state carrier Alitalia is registering (or leasing) its aircraft in Ireland.

Above: I crossed the tracks in time to catch this early evening train from W-wa Wschodnia to Radom on its way between W-wa Okęcie and W-wa Dawidy. This livery - grey/silver/maroon - looks rather fetching on the EN-57, lending the air of French SNCF in the 1960s. The rear four-car set was the more frequently seen light blue and yellow.

It was getting dark - time to set up the tripod. To my left, the continual sound of bird distress calls, broadcast at twilight roosting time to scare flocks of birds away from the airport. Above: A Eurolot ATR-42 inbound to land, flies over the 12:03 Kraków-Olsztyn train passing on its way to Warsaw. It will arrive in Olsztyn at 21:03. My hands are getting cold.

It's now gone quarter past five and -4C. Above: This 30 second exposure captures the light trace of a Boeing 737 landing overhead. The battery in my trusty and generally excellent Nikon D80 does not like cold. It's not got long to go. And my hands are now very cold. Time to go home.

Incidentally Google Earth users, the above two pics were taken exactly here: 52° 8'34.12"N, 20°59'20.99"E. Switch on Panoramio and you'll see an outstanding shot taken from the same point taken by Paweł Prokop, which inspired me to come here.

Railway miscellany

A quiet blogging day means I can upload a few railway pics (for the anoraks among my readers really). All taken last Saturday. Above: A Czech Railways 181-class engine hauls a coal train to Okęcie. Quite what an engine from the Czech Republic is doing up Jeziorki way? I do know that moving coal around Poland has ceased to be the monopoly of Polish state railways (PKP) and that a number of private operators such as PCC Rail are doing this work. I read on this site that the above engine (181 131-4) has been leased from CD (Ceske Drahy) to PCC Tabor Szczakowa to move coal trains from the Silesian coalfields to the sidings at Okęcie from which PCC's own diesel locos move the wagons to the Warsaw's Siekierki power station. Above: A diesel double-header takes a full coal train to Siekierki, having just passed W-wa Dawidy station. The lead loco is PKP SM-48 087 (version of Russian-built TEM-2 for Poland), following it is a PCC Rail ST-44 1099. The latter, nicknamed 'Gagar' by Polish train spotters, has all but disappeared from Polish rails, and is seen today mostly on industrial lines such as this. Gagars have a high axle weight (a few years ago the wooden sleepers on the Okęcie-Siekierki coal line were all replaced with concrete ones), and are very thirsty of the diesel oil and chuck out clouds of dirty fumes, as is visible in the photo. Above: A Radom-bound suburban train on its way between W-wa Dawidy and W-wa Jeziorki. This photo to me is the very quintessence of the Jeziorki's railway landscape; the flat fields, farmland, snowdrift fences, the bleakly-fecund familiar; the electric wires and gantries, sun burning through the morning fog. Note the kilometre marker on the left - we are 2.5km from Okęcie sidings.

Viaduct to the airport

Yesterday Eddie and I went down to see the progress on the new viaduct that will open up a direct road route from Ursynów to Okęcie airport. As you see, the viaduct is ready - some finishing is needed - landscaping, traffic lights. Yet before it can open, ul. Poleczki, which links the viaduct with ul. Puławska and Ursynów beyond, has to be widened. Here progress is slower. The new viaduct will bring the airport some 10 minutes (20 minutes in peak times) closer to us.

The viaduct itself crosses no few than 14 (count 'em!) railway lines - the two mainline tracks down to Radom, Kielce and Kraków, nine tracks for the coal sidings and two more for the sand/aggregates sidings and one which eventually leads into the Warsaw Metro.

Above: View from the viaduct. Four coal-hauling electric locos stand in the sidings while a W-wa Wschodnia-bound osóbka heads towards W-wa Okęcie. The new viaduct is an excellent vantage point for both train anoraks and plane spottaz.

Below: Google Earth's current map doesn't yet show the new infrastructure. Viaduct and extensions of ul. Wirażowa shown in yellow.