A little local difficulty on the rails

I left home at half past three for my afternoon walk and was puzzled to see down the bottom of my lane a stationary freight train on the railway line. Six minutes later, it was still there, unmoved. This looked like a rake of empty Innofreight wagons, each carrying three containers used for conveying biomass to the power station at Siekierki. Thirty wagons, ninety containers.

Below: the freight train has clearly broken down and is blocking both the southbound ('down') passenger platform at Chynów station and the Jakubowizna level crossing. The Koleje Mazowieckie all-stations service to Radom Główny is approaching Platform 2 (on the 'up' line; note the red light on the front of the train indicating wrong-track working), the train having being switched onto the 'up' line further back up the line so as to go around the stranded freight train. The passenger train is running to time (15:42). A short queue of local vehicles is still waiting at the level crossing.

Below: The locomotive is a Czechoslovak Škoda 59E, 182 041-4, which is 62 years old (built in 1964), currently used by cargo operator Rail STM sp. z o.o. To its right, we see the Koleje Mazowieckie all-stations service to Warka approaching platform 2, having switched tracks further back up the line (again, red light showing wrong-track working). Amazingly, this service is also running to time (15:58). Once it passes through, the freight train manages to start, and clears the level crossing and the points just north of the station. Cars, trucks, vans and tractors, some of which had been waiting for up to half an hour by now, finally managed to move. Many drivers were wasting fuel and polluting the air by not turning off their engines! I noticed that the barriers on the level crossing to the south of Chynów station were also down with a long queue of traffic on either side.

But the broken-down freight train is starting to have a knock-on effect. Below: here's the Radom-bound Radomianka accelerated service swinging past the stationary freight train, now the points are clear, on its way to platform 2, Chynów station. As I lined up the shot at the long end of my 70-300mm zoom, I noticed a man, carrying several shopping bags, clambering over the ballast along the railway line, blithely unconcerned by the passing train. Must be not from here; if he were, he'd be walking along the asphalted road running parallel to the tracks. Walking on ballast is not comfortable nor easy, let alone if one is heavily burdened. Russian rail saboteur? Thought did cross my mind...

Below: the crippled freight train, still blocking the south-bound platform, is starting to cause increasing delays to passenger services. To the left we can see the Warsaw-bound Radomir 'accelerated' service, waiting for the Radom-bound Radomianka accelerated service (middle) to switch back to the 'down' line, having called at Chynów's platform 2. Both Koleje Mazowieckie double-decker trains are being pushed by their respective locomotives (these are push-pull sets that can be controlled from either end). Both services are running over 20 minutes late at this stage. 

Once the two double-deckers were clear of Chynów station, the old freight loco managed to get its power back, and slowly made its way south towards Warka and Radom. Within half an hour, passenger services are back to normal, including the express trains that hurtle through without stopping at Chynów. Below: here comes the San InterCity service from Warsaw to Przemyśl, running to time.

The moral of the story? Things go wrong. A private freight operator, an elderly locomotive, a breakdown – but there are procedures in place and delays are limited to a handful of passenger trains. In the old days, the knock-on effects of an incident like this would have lasted hours.

This time three years ago (by complete coincidence!)
Rail travel update: from FUBAR to SNAFU

This time four years ago:
Horizons

This time seven years ago:
Helping others? Couldn't hurt

This time nine years ago:
Local ornithology

This time 13 years ago:
A hare in Wyczółki

This time 14 years ago:
Warsaw by night

This time 15 years ago:

Tales of the Riverbank

This time 16 years ago:
Okęcie before the funerals

This time 17 years ago:
At the General's house

Post-Lent photo catch-up

Easter is over, my Lenten cycle of posts is complete. Time to share some of my better photos from last month. Below: sun low in the afternoon sky, Jakubowizna. Beyond the last row of trees in this plantation, a fence, and beyond that, an orchard.

Below: looking west along ulica Wspólna ('Common Street'), illuminated by a setting sun.
 

Below: the track from Machcin II towards Rososz. This stretch is either deep sand or deep mud, drivers tend to avoid this bit and detour down a passable, though also unasphalted, section of road further east.

Below: cranes in flight. The local crane colony didn't fly south for the winter, but remained here, despite the long weeks of snow cover. Photo taken 30 March over Chynów.

Below: moonrise over Jakubowizna. looking up the lane towards my dziaka.

Left: looking down the lane from the end of my drive towards Chynów. A beautiful sun descends towards the horizon. Taken at the long end of my 70-300mm Nikkor telephoto zoom, making the sun seem unnaturally large.

Below: an evening Koleje Mazowieckie service to Warsaw approaches Chynów from Krężel. Photo taken from the level crossing to the north of Chynów station a few seconds before the barriers came down. The clocks have just gone forward, the sun has just set (19:10).

Below: semi-fast Koleje Mazowieckie service heading to Radom, between Chynów and Warka – this train does not stop at Krężel, Michalczew or Gośniewice along the way. 

Below: crushed-velvet dusk; the corner of ul. Miodowa ('Honey Street') and ul. Główna ('Main Street'), Chynów.

Below: the road sweeps into Jakubowizna, on the north side of the railway line.

Tomorrow: plenty of cat news from Jakubowizna!

This time seven years ago:

Działka update

This time eight years ago:
Łódź is a film set

This time nine years ago
Contemplative imagery, Ealing and Warsaw

This time 14 years ago:
Baffled: my first visit to Jeziorki's Lidl 

This time 15 years ago:
In vino veritas?

This time 16 two years ago:
Are we getting more intelligent?

This time 17 three years ago:
Lenten recipe: tuna, chickpea and pesto salad

This time 18 years ago:
Coal train sidings, Konstancin-Jeziorna

This time 19 years ago:
Jeziorki from the air

 

More much-needed snow

Marvellous! Overnight a new dump of fresh, fresh snow, covering all the footprints and tracks. Delight for the cats after their breakfast to go out for another romp in the powder. Below: Wenus, haunch-high in snow. Precipitation on this scale is what the soil has been crying out for.

Below: Céleste enjoying herself thoroughly. Temperatures this morning around -5°C, little to no wind. Not the -16°C it has been recently.

Below: snow on the car shows how much has fallen. Arcturus, unable to burrow under the fence, goes over the top to get back in my garden.

Below: Czestuś spent a long time outside. Came back with an appetite!

After spending a while in the snow, I lead the cats back in the house, and set off for my long walk. Passing the auto workshop at the bottom of my lane, impossible to identify cars under the snow.

Below: a Koleje Mazowieckie Służbowy ('service'/'official') train north of Chynów station, almost certainly an empty stock movement or a rescue run. When a train is shown as a Służbowy, it is running as a non-commercial service (przejazd próżny). It carries no passengers and is prioritised by dispatchers to get it to a specific location as quickly as possible (podsył). Note it is a five-car single-unit set, not the more usual ten-car double-unit set. Something's gone wrong up the line to Warsaw...

Below: I pass the car breaker's yard on the DK50, covered by snow. Sad to see an Audi A2 up there (middle), with its rust-resistant lightweight aluminium body and extreme fuel efficiency. Production ceased in 2005; I reckon it will be a collector's classic in years to come.

Below: the snow-ploughs and gritters were out in force along the DK50 (I saw two in the space of about five minutes) and two cars from national highway operator, GDDKiA, monitoring the state of the roads.

As I'm still not doing big grocery shops, I decide to go to Zajazd u Latoszków for my lunch, with mushroom soup and grilled barbecue chicken breast with salad, beetroot and potatoes, all for 30 złotys (£6.20). After walking for half an hour – much of that through deep virgin snow – a piping hot bowl of soup was just the thing. 

Below: another five-car single-unit set, this time heading south towards Radom, this time carrying passengers. Evidently many trains breaking down.

Below: my apple trees. It should be a good year. 1) Biennial bearing, 2) The snow cover, 3) lots of natural fertiliser stored up (coffee grounds). Blossom by late-April, apples by late-September. 

This time last year:

Week with new kitten

This time two years ago:
Warsaw railway interstitials

This time three years ago:
Qualia memories – snowy Greenwich, January 1970

This time five years ago:
Meagre, disappointing snow

This time 12 years ago:
The sad truth about Karczunkowska's pavement

This time 13 years ago:
About Warsaw's kebab restaurants
[In 2012, a king-size lamb kebab in pitta bread cost 13zł, today it's around 30zł.]

This time 16 years ago:
Making the most of winter

This time 17 years ago:
Progress along Ballay Street

This time 18 years ago:
Shortest, mildest, winter?

Poland works at Christmas

Three public holidays in a row, for the first time. Christmas Eve became a statutory day off work this year, along with Christmas Day and the day known in Britain as Boxing Day (referred to here more prosaically as Drugi dzień świąt ('second day of the holidays'). Below: sunrise, as seen from my kitchen window, on Christmas Day, a few minutes before eight.

Normally, I'd have stayed over, but (again for the first time ever) there's six cats at home that need feeding, so on each of the three public holidays, I travelled between Chynów and Jeziorki and back again with Koleje Mazowieckie. All my six trains arrived on time; the ticket app worked faultlessly (together with banking app for payment); there was no rowdiness among the passengers. The train was neither crowded nor empty (about the same passenger numbers as you'd expect on weekdays outside of rush hours). Many people had suitcases or rucksacks. 

Each of my six train journeys took 24 minutes (the 35km journey by car takes around 45 minutes using about two litres of petrol). And given that one litre of 95-octane petrol costs the same as my train ticket (with senior's discount and annual Warsaw travel card), there's no sense in driving whatsoever. It's twice as expensive. Plus, I can drink, which, let's face it, is a good reason to avoid the car at the festive season.

Compare the situation in the UK. This is the message from National Rail: "There will be no National Rail services on Christmas Day as usual this year. On Boxing Day most train operators will have no service – however, there will be a very limited train service operated by a small number of train operators." Given the far larger percentage of non-Christian workforce in the UK than in Poland, it surprises me that public transport grinds to a complete halt in Britain, whilst in Poland it's working well. By leaving public transport to operate across the Christmas holiday, seasonal travel problems are diluted and folk aren't forced into cars.

Poland gets on with it. The shops have been shut for the three days, not a problem with a little forethought, but a lack of public transport would be a hindrance. The Christmas timetables were basically a Sunday service minus a handful of trains, but essentially an hourly service was maintained throughout. Over the three days, I received five alerts via email from Koleje Mazowieckie that some train or another was delayed or cancelled on my line. However, four out of those five were either south of Radom or east of Czachówek Wschodni, so they would not have affected my travel. 

Having said that, coming back from town on the night of Friday 19 December there was a massive delay (one train was 85 minutes late, my own one home was 20 minutes late); this was caused by a driver crashing a car into the level-crossing barriers south of Ustanówek station. As my delayed train crawled south from Ustanówek, we passed several fire engines on either side of the tracks, blue lights flashing in the cold night. Below: a Góra Kalwaria-bound train passes the scene of the previous night's hold-up, Saturday 20 December.

Below: a seasonal photo of Czester the Czonker who has occupied an empty box of tangerine oranges.

Back to normal tomorrow, fortunately I still have plentiful supplies of cat food but I am right out of fresh fruit and veg.

This time three years ago:|
Part I of the Long Review of 2022

This time four years ago:
S7 extension Section A walked end to end

This time six years ago:
Eighty-five chains to Hazelwood Station

This time seven years ago:
Christmas round-up

This time nine years ago:
Derbyshire at Christmas

This time ten years ago:
Across the High Peaks

This time 11 years ago:
Derbyshire's rolling landscapes

This time 12 years ago:
Our Progress Around the Sceptr'd Isle 

This time 13 years ago:
Out and about in Duffield

and...
Christmas Break

This time 14 years ago:
Boxing Day walk in Derbyshire

This time 15 years ago 

Derbyshire in the snow

This time 17 years ago:

Derbyshire in the sunshine

This time 18 years ago:

Derbyshire in the drizzle

It's been a long time coming

Friday 28 November 2025. The opening of the passage under Warszawa Zachodnia (Warsaw West) station. I came on Sunday to cast mine eyes upon this marvel, for which I had waited so long.

Goodness! When did work start? Six years ago or longer? It's become a blur. So many memories; of the old underground passage, reeking of the 1980s, cigarette smoke and burnt casein, and its closure; of years of inconvenience, thumbing through back-dated magazines sold for a quarter of their cover price, trying to read the printed timetables in dim light, garbled station announcements saying that my train will be arriving at a different platform to the one advertised... A commuter hellscape that... finally... is over.

In its place, a modern, bright, civilised, convenient station; escalators, lifts, digital signs showing departures in real time; and the promise of modern retail and gastronomy replacing the dives and dinginess of what I considered at the time Poland's worst railway station.

Below: lots of space in this mall....

Left: ...Disco pants and haircuts. This place has got everything!

Though we'll still wait for the cafés and stores to open, soon there'll be a choice of a Starbucks, Costa and a CoffeeToGo; there'll be a Żabka (naturally), an Aldi (wow! I've never been in one, in Poland or in the UK! Wonder if they are licenced to sell alcohol, or is the shop deemed to be too close to the platforms?) A Subway, a Paul, a 1minute SmaczneGo and a Gorąco Polecam (the last one for me), and a second Scottish Restaurant (one at either end of the tunnel), a Relay, a Rossmann and a HeBe. Travellers will not be left wanting for choice, though I wonder what the opening hours of these shops and cafés will be, given that there's a gap of just 68 minutes between the last train of one day and the first train of the next.

Below: if not, there are several sets of these well-stocked and reliable (contactless card) vending machines dotted around the premises.

Below: looking west, with the old tunnel from Aleje Jerozolimskie behind me. The dip in the tunnel ahead leads down to what will be the underground tram stop when the tramline is finally completed (2026? 2027? I neither wish to believe the press releases nor to speculate). Once done – this will be marvellous. To be able to descend from your train and board a tram heading north to Wola or south to Mokotów will be a huge improvement in the travelling lives of Varsovians. For now, the passage down to the tram tunnel to the left is fenced off (and probably will continue to be for some time to come).

Below: to reach other platforms you no longer have to go up via the footbridge. Stairs, escalators and lifts now take you down to the tunnel. This is Platform (peron) 3, serving two tracks, one eastbound, one westbound. Try not to get confused by the track (tor) numbers, one aspect of the old station that's not been reformed. Track 23 eastbound, track 21 westbound. I think. 

Below: the western waiting room/booking hall on the ulica Tunelowa side. Smaller than the one on the Aleje Jerozolimskie side (but less busy). 

Below: here you'll find the 'Neighbour Area Plan' which nicely shows  central Warsaw's railway stations. Not 'train stations', not 'neighbor'. The Radom line terminates at W-wa Gdańska station to the north and skirts the city centre through which it used to go. Much to my annoyance.

Below: access from the booking hall to the platforms is via stairs, escalators and lifts. No more having to walk up 50 steps, then down 50 steps, then down another 50 steps, and finally up another 30 steps to get from Platform 3 to Platform 9. Real-time digital timetables everywhere.

For my purposes, the opening of the tunnel marks a huge leap forward in being able to change trains at W-wa Zachodnia. From a 20 minute walk up and down stairs and ramps, through mud, across the busy road at the back of the station and along a corrugated canyon to reach Platform 9, cut to 15 minutes with a shorter route, down to eight minutes when the western section of the tunnel was opened in October 2024, the interchange now takes six minutes. But ultimately, the Radom line should really go back to serving W-wa Ochota, W-wa Śródmieście and W-wa Powiśle like it always had done. Changing at W-wa Zachodnia is no longer the monumental pain in the arse that it once was. 

Poland is getting on with it; works take a long time, but in the end they get there (hello HS2) and things get noticeably better. Repeat consistently over a couple of decades, and the contrast between then and now is stunning.

Ultimately, vast improvements like the ones I've seen here and elsewhere across Poland's railway network over the past 28 years, demonstrates that it is possible to make rail travel more attractive to passengers. Just don't privatise it. British trains are worse than Poland's and vastly more expensive.

Below: bonus photo – Last Train to Warsaw, just leaving Chynów.

This time last year:

Biorhythms are nonsense. And yet...

This time four years ago:
Twilight rambler

This time six years ago:
Late-November pictorial round-up

This time seven years ago:
Artificial Intelligence vs Artificial Consciousness

[In retrospect, an interesting and prescient piece!]

This time eight years ago:
Viaduct takes shape in the snow

This time 11 years ago:
No in-work benefits for four years?

This time 12 years ago:

Third snow-free November in a row

This time 13 years ago:

Another November without snow

This time 13 years ago:
Snow-free November

This time 15 years ago:
Krakowskie Przedmieście in the snow

Mińsk Mazowiecki

Today, 22 September, is European Car-Free Day, and as happens every year, Koleje Mazowieckie allows ticket-free travel all over its network. This spans the entire Mazovian province, with many lines extending beyond. I had planned to visit Siedlce (pop. 75,000), to complete the set of former voivodship capitals prior to the 1999 territorial reform that cut their number  from 49 to 16.  To date, I have blogged the other three, Radom, Ciechanów and Płock.

However, because of delays, I missed the connecting train at W-wa Wschodnia (Warsaw East), and rather than wait an hour for the next Siedlce-bound train, I decided to visit Mińsk Mazowiecki (pop. 40,000) instead. Which proved a disappointment. I look for the good points and the bad points in places I visit and reach a balanced conclusion. The city that Mińsk Mazowiecki reminds me of most is Białystok, another place originally established and owned by one family in the 18th century and lacking a mediaeval market square.

Until 2012, Mińsk Mazowiecki lay on the main road from Warsaw to Moscow. In that year, the new A2 motorway bypassed the town to the north, diverting a significant amount of passing trade. This is visible in the number of investments made in the 1990s that today look shabby and tired. Below: a row of commercial and residential buildings, just off ulica Warszawska, the main town's east-west thoroughfare.

Below: the bus station building, dilapidated but still functioning. Another reminder of how Poland looked in the 1990s. Probably around the last time I used a Euronet cash machine...

Thoroughly trashed by the war, most of Mińsk Mazowiecki is made up of communist-era buildings of modest architectural merit. Below: mixed-use properties from drabber times.

Over the railway station, a lovely old-school sign; the neon no longer working (sprayed over it seems). It reminds me of the sign over the old Łódź Fabryczna station. The weather was perfect; the last day of summer, indeed.

Below: another sign bearing the name of the town. This one on ul. Warszawska, by the Park Dernałowiczów. [I googled "what should I see in Mińsk Mazowiecki?" Number one was Park Dernałowiczów. Now, if the answer to "what's a given town's must-see attraction" is a park, beware, brother, beware...]

Some Tsarist-era buildings remain – most of the ones I saw were in poor good condition, such as the one below.

Left: a plaque mounted in the pavement is the only reminder of the old Jewish cemetery, that served 'from the second half of the 18th century until the end of the 19th', and 'existed until 1945'. Some 7,000 Polish Jews were imprisoned in the Mińsk Mazowiecki ghetto; most were murdered at Treblinka, but 1,300 were killed in the town's streets as the ghetto was liquidated in August 1942.

Below: the town hall, built in the 1950s, served as the local headquarters of the PZPR (Polish United Workers' Party) until 1973.

Below: here and there, you can still find wooden buildings from the 19th and early 20th century. Not as well maintained as in Kazimierz Dolny, but still bearing a certain charm.

Below: what have we here? A pristine BMW 535 (E34, third-generation 5-series). I remember road-testing one of these for CBI News in 1989! Note the 21st-century buildings to the right and the crane on the horizon to the left... change is happening.

Below: there is hope. Mińsk Mazowiecki station is just 45 minutes away from W-wa Śródmieście (by Koleje Mazowieckie local services) and 35 minutes from W-wa Centralna (by InterCity). Property prices are about one-third lower per square metre compared to Warsaw suburbs like Ursynów. Developers are starting to notice, and putting up apartment blocks like the one below, situated a mere 200m from the railway station. To the right, you can see cranes working on new blocks.

Something tells me that Mińsk Mazowiecki will experience a revival by reinventing itself as a dormitory suburb rather than as a local hub. Having said that, the town has one flourishing enterprise, the railway rolling-stock refurbishment firm, Pesa Mińsk Mazowiecki. The works now refurbish trains for multiple railway operators from across Poland. and employ over 700 people. In the photo below, taken from the footbridge at the western end of the platform of Mińsk Mazowiecki station, you can see rolling stock belonging to Koleje Dolnośląskie and PKP InterCity.

Mińsk Mazowiecki is also home to the Polish Air Force's 23rd Tactical Base, which is there to defend Warsaw's airspace from the east. While waiting for my train back, I heard the characteristic howling screech of a jet fighter; I looked up to see a South Korean-built KAI T-50 Golden Eagle blasting up into the sky. This multirole light combat/trainer aircraft based here would be on the front line for downing Russian drones that 'stray' over Polish territory.

This time last year:
Car-free day 2024 - Łowicz

This time four years ago
Into darkness

This time seven years ago:
Summer's end

This time eight years ago:
In which I lose a lot of data from my old laptop

This time nine years ago:
Konin – town of aluminium, electricity and coal

This time 12 years ago:
Car-free day falls on a Sunday

This time 13 years ago:
Vistula at record low level

This time 16 years ago:
Car-free day? Warsaw's roads busier than ever

This time 17 years ago:
The shape of equinox

This time 18 years ago:
Potato harvest time in Jeziorki