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.
 

This time seven years ago:
Ten years of blogging

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Białystok the Dull

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UK's first town where Poles are a majority

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Lost legend of rock'n'roll: Johnny Kołyma

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Stalin's plans to escalate nuclear Armageddon

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Warsaw's favourite weekend destination

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We are two

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Crushed velvet dusk in my City of Dreams

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My first blog post on W-wa Jeziorki

Big new railway project for southern Warsaw

This project has been talked about for many years, but finally plans have been announced and public consultations are under way. 

I'm referring to the idea of turning the Siekierki coal-train line into a proper, electrified, suburban commuter railway, all the way to Konstancin-Jeziorna. [I wrote about this back in 2014!] Now, this project also involves doubling up track from Warsaw all the way down to Czachowek Południowy, to increase throughput capacity for suburban traffic. This therefore means four tracks all the way to Czachówek, meaning that Zalesie Górne, Piaseczno, Nowa Iwiczna and all suburban stations from W-wa Jeziorki northwards will need new platforms. Eight brand-new stations are proposed, with a further two in reserve.

This is how the project, as currently proposed, will look... [Full documentation in Polish –  Dobudowa torów aglomeracyjnych na odcinku Warszawa Al. Jerozolimskie – Piaseczno wraz z połączeniem do Konstancina-Jeziornej is here.] Below: a schematic representation of the proposed project.

At the Warsaw end, a new connection to the Radom line will be built from W-wa Włochy, allowing trains approaching Warsaw from the west to swing south directly without having to change direction at W-wa Zachodnia.

This means that W-wa Aleje Jerozolimskie will get two new platforms with three new platform edges. A new station, W-wa Instalatorów, will be built between W-wa Aleje Jerozolimskie and W-wa Rakowiec stations. Extra (island) platforms will also be have to be built at W-wa Rakowiec and W-wa Żwirki i Wigury stations. At W-wa Służewiec station, the current island platform will be removed and replaced by two new island platforms, and (at last!) a new passage under the tracks will be built allowing access to the station from the south (at the moment you either have to walk a 700m detour or cross the track illegally and jump up onto the platform). Several new footbridges are also planned along this stretch, also something to be praised.

W-wa Okęcie, rebuilt in 2016-17, will be demolished yet again and moved further north of its current location, in the form of a pair of island platforms, linked by an underground passage. Something else that's sorely needed is a new station, W-wa Poleczki, between W-wa Okęcie and W-wa Dawidy. This will be built on the north side of the viaduct carrying ulica Poleczki over the tracks and the S79 expressway, and will be hugely useful to folk working in the numerous offices and warehouses that have sprung up around here in recent years.

Another brand-new station that's being proposed is W-wa Krasnowola, on ul. Zatorze, with one island platform; this will be located north of the S79/S2/S7 expressway junction. At present, this will just be a reserve, with a planned option for building it at an unspecified later date. Four new railway viaducts will be needed to cross over the S2 just south of this location.

W-wa Dawidy and W-wa Jeziorki stations, which as long-term readers of this blog will remember were once served by island platforms, will once again become island platforms, straddled this time by not one but two tracks on either side. Ulica Baletowa will go under the railway line; a new viaduct will be built some 400m to the south connected by a new road parallel to ul. Kórnicka and joining the S7's eastern service road on the other side.

A similar story at Nowa Iwiczna, which also reverts to an island platform, and the good news for local residents is that a viaduct is in the plans for ul. Krasickiego, replacing the infamous level crossing there.

It is south of Nowa Iwiczna that the coal-train line swing off towards Piaseczno and Konstancin. This will run double-tracked (and electrified) all the way to a final stop, Konstancin-Jeziorna-Mirkowska. En route, trains will stop at the following new stations: Piaseczno Mleczarska, Piaseczno Energetyczna (adjacent to ul. Puławska - brilliant solution!), Piaseczno Julianowska (serving Julianów), Piaseczno Śniadeckich (the eastern end of Julianów) with a reserve stop at Konstancin-Jeziorna Głowackiego (for the south-west corner of the Las Kabacki forest), past the coal-train sidings, then on to Konstancin-Jeziorna, serving the town centre (on ul. Warszawska), over a new junction where the new passenger line bids farewell to the coal train, which heads off north to Siekierki power station, and finally on to the end of the line, at Konstancin-Jeziorna-Mirkowska. 

So that's the new passenger line to Konstancin. Meanwhile, on the Warsaw-Radom line, before it gets to Piaseczno station, there will be another station, Piaseczno Północ, south of ul. Słoneczna, along the route of the new DW721 bis (that phantom road from the stump-end of the new S7's Węzeł Lesznowola that will one day run to Piaseczno. This was once mooted as Stara Iwiczna station, but the DW721 bis made that plan obsolete.

At Piaseczno, a station newly rebuilt and now serving as the end of the SKM lines S4 and S40, the current platforms will be dismantled and replaced with two new island platforms serving the four tracks, and a new footbridge built at the station's southern side.

The level crossing in Żabieniec will be replaced with a viaduct. At Zalesie Górne, the current platforms will be replaced with a pair of island platforms, and the level crossing on ul. Pionierów will be replaced by a viaduct.

The same will happen at Ustanówek and Czachówek Górny, with island platforms replacing the newly built platforms that now lie on either side of the tracks. The Czachówek diamond will remain as is, with just single tracks connecting west to north, north to east, east to south and south to west spurs.

At Czachówek Południowy station, which already has two island platforms serving four tracks, the existing platforms will be extended to the south. The existing level crossing will be replaced by a viaduct 200 metres further south. And here, the four tracks will merge into the two that will carry trains local and express on to Radom via Chynów, Warka and Dobieszyn as they do today.

The upshot of all this track-doubling is that once done, during the rush hours, the line will be able to accommodate one local train every five minutes (!) and one InterCity train every 15 minutes. Excellent!

Public consultations are taking place up and down the line until early June. The full timetable of dates and venues here. (My nearest one will be in Uwieliny, near Zalesie Górne, on 29 May). My fear is an outcrop of BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything), the radical wing of the NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard). I can see this around the project to link the Radom line from Warka to Grójec. Of the 12 variants put up for discussion, all 12 have been shouted down the local communities, including here in Chynów. 

Even if the whole Konstancin rail project goes ahead, my experience (S79, S2, S7, Warsaw-Radom modernisation, all covered on this blog) suggests that it might be 2033 at the earliest before we actually see this completed. The tender for the detailed design is not to be announced until the second half of 2025. From then, another five years could pass before construction work begins in earnest, so provided there are no delays, 2033 is possible.

This time last year:
Prime spring, Jakubowizna

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Classic car show, Nadarzyn

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Classic vehicles at London's VE-Day 70 celebrations

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Malodorous passengers on Warsaw's public transport

This time 12 years ago:
Inside Filtry - Warsaw's waterworks (Museum Night 2011)

This time 13 years ago:
Warsaw's Museum Night 2010

This time 14 years ago:
On Transcendence

As I walked out one midsummer's morning

The sun rose over Warsaw today at 04:14, it's earliest in the year (indeed it rises at 04:14 from the 12th to the 23rd of June; the latest sunrise - at 21:01 - is on 21st to the 28th June, making the 22nd the longest day). Making the most of the public holiday (Corpus Christi), I woke up this morning just after 3am, dressed and ate breakfast, leaving the house in Jeziorki bound for Jakubowizna on foot. Temperature was a cool 9C, thin jacket required. 

Below: in case anyone wants to know what quarter past three in the morning looks like in suburban Warsaw in mid-June, here we are - view from my bedroom window. Untweaked in Photoshop - out of the box. Light mist on the meadow behind the house.

Below: end of my street, junction with ulica Karczunkowska. I'm on my way. No traffic - public holiday as well as being really early!

Below: the pond on ul. Pozytywki, ducks and coots still asleep. Nothing stirs. One dog barks nervously.

Below: still incomplete, the new Orthodox church on ul. Puławska catches the rising sun. This is Warsaw's Hagia Sophia, belonging to the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church (nothing to do with the war criminal Patriach Kirill). Modelled on the one in Constantinople. It stands just metres from Warsaw's southern border (this side of the treeline).

Onward through Mysiadło to Piaseczno, the Slough of the East. Not my favourite Polish town, though I must say, that like many places right now, it is currently undergoing a thoroughgoing modernisation. Below: work under way, roads closed - an early bus runs empty across (Piaseczno's) ul. Puławska. Photo taken one hour after leaving home. I look forward to seeing Piaseczno when all the work's been finished. Looks promising. Proper provisions for cyclists and pedestrians.

Onward, south to the edge of Piaseczno, over the footbridge crossing the river Jeziorka (nothing to do with Jeziorki) and into Żabieniec, still noted for its fishponds (farmed carp) and the freshwater fish institute (Instytut Rybactwa Śródlądowego). The ponds are a landmark when flying into Warsaw Okęcie airport, to the left of the flightpath.

Having passed through Żabieniec, I enter the Chojnów landscape park (Chojnowski Park Krajobrazowy) - the best part of the trip. After a while, the footpath joins the Gościniec Wareki (the archaic word gościniec is akin to the English 'highway' in the historical context - think of 'highwaymen'). The road runs south; to the west the fishponds, and the Warsaw-Radom railway line - audible but not visible. Below: bliss - two hours' walk from home. About one-third of the way.

Having crossed the road to Zalesie Górne, the Gościniec Warecki becomes asphalted. Cars are mercifully rare - on this seven-kilometre stretch, I saw just two (and two cyclists, two dog walkers and one deer). Below: the curious settlement of Nowinki (lit. 'Little Tidings' or 'Little Novelties').

What makes Nowinki (at least its northern end) unusual is the character of the buildings - działki set back from the road, modest wooden shacks mostly, neglected, yet fenced off with concrete posts and barbed wire, surrounded by tall trees. The hallmarks of a communist-era enclave - a rural retreat for middle-ranking apparatchiks. Having retired and or died off, their działki have become terminally  shabby. No one claiming them. Further on up the road, new houses are appearing - brick-built and without the paranoid fencing.

Time for a second breakfast and a ten-minute rest at the three-hour mark between Nowinki and the next village along - Krępa, at the southern edge of the forest. The Gościniec Warecki gives way to ul. Długa. Krępa was much prettier, brighter and better looked-after than Nowinki - pavements, notice-board, well-kept houses. 

Leaving the forest behind, my next waypoint is the Skierniewice-Łuków railway line, which crosses the main Warsaw-Radom line at Czachówek. Like the locals, I avoid a half-kilometre detour via a road tunnel under the tracks by using an unofficial but well-worn path over them. Having just seen (in the distance) two passing container trains heading east-west and west-east, I knew the coast would be clear for a long while. In the distance, the Czachówek diamond.

South of the line, I feel I'm almost home in Jakubowizna. But it's still a long walk to Sułkowice. On one side of the road flows the Czarna river, floodbanks on either side protecting adjacent lands. Coming up to 9am, but still very few cars on the road. Below: a footbridge over the Czarna, leading to Czachówek Południowy station.

Below: another curiously named settlement along my route - Kiełbaska (lit. 'Little Sausage'). Untouched by progress.

Soon, I arrive in Sułkowice - famous for being home to Poland's police-dog training school. Past the village and station, the DK50 viaduct on the horizon means I'm no more than 20 minutes from home on the działka. Rushing through (non-stop between Warka and Piaseczno) is the 'San' express.

It's good to know that I can get to the działka under my own steam - ended up spending no money today (all shops along the way firmly shut) - walking 26.4 kilometres (16.4 miles) with six or seven kilo on my back.

Arriving on the działka, time for a wash, a beer - and a nap (which ended up being two hours long!). But then I only slept five hours, so I needed it. A total over over walked 36,500 paces today.

This time seven years ago:
Central Warsaw rail update

This time ten years ago:
Poland's night train network

This time 11 years ago:
On a musical note

This time 12 years ago:
Standing stones

This time 15 years ago:
The year nears its zenith

Horizons

Good photography weather - brisk wind moves scattered clouds across the sky, dappling the landscape with patches of sun that will either illuminate the foreground or the horizon, or neither, or both, the sky itself capable of turning in some drama. Photos from three recent walks, all three being at least 16,000 paces (12km+). Of late, I've been catching a bus, buying a 20-minute ticket (3.40zł/ 60p)and walking home, extending my range and opening new vistas.

Below: lit by strong sunshine, the chimneys of Siekierki, 13km to the north-east. In the foreground farm buildings along ulica Złota, Nowy Podolszyn.

Below: Looking north-east from Podolszyn, sunlit blocks of flats in Ursynów; on the horizon, the chimneys of the Siekierki power station.

Below: looking at Zamienie from the west; four cranes suggest more high-rise developments on the edge of town. Nearest to the camera, Osiedle wśród pól, ('the estate among the fields') which will soon be engulfed by other estates. Note the distant airliner - it's approaching the airport from over Ursynów on RWY 29 as the usual RWY 33 (flying in over Jeziorki) is closed for maintenance.

Below: looking at Nowa Wola from the ulica Polna, which runs from Lesznowola through the fields of Podolszyn to Nowy Podolszyn.

Below: looking north from the fields between Nowa Wola and Podolszyn towards Warsaw, a LOT Embraer ERJ 175 departs from RWY 11, Okęcie airport. Note the shimmering heat haze - which surprised me, because there was a cold wind blowing in from the north.

Below: looking south from the new viaduct that connects Nowa Wola and Zgorzała; the S7 extension, flanked by service roads runs on the next junction, Węzeł Lesznowola.

Below: looking east from the new viaduct towards Piaseczno, housing estates of Nowa Wola and Nowa Iwiczna in between.

Below: sunset in the fields between Dawidy Bankowe, Zamienie and Łady

Below: ploughed field between Podolszyn and the Novisa Modern estate, under construction at the northern end of Nowa Wola, in the English style.

 

Below: Warsaw's skyline stretches out along the horizon - looking north along ulica Polna as it makes its way from Lesznowola via Podolszyn to Nowy Podolszyn. Asphalted at either end, there's still an 850m gap; this stretch at least is hardened, the next bit is little more than a muddy track.

Below: ulica Gryczna (lit. 'Buckwheat Street'), s dirt-track road leading from Podolszyn towards Zamienie 

For some topical perspective - wayside shrine, Nowy Podolszyn, a banner in Ukrainian colours, and on it the supplication from the Trisagion - 'From air [ie tempests], hunger, fire and wars, rescue us, O Lord'. On the notice board there's a leaflet in Ukrainian with information for refugees; next to in, in Polish, a leaflet explaining how local people can help.

Below: bonus horizon in the snow, taken on 2 April. A train of empty coal wagons heads back south along the electrified main line, between W-wa Dawidy and W-wa Jeziorki. Unusually heavy snowfall for April.

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

This time five years ago:
Local ornithology

This time nine years ago:
A hare in Wyczółki

This time ten years ago:
Warsaw by night

This time 11 years ago:

Tales of the Riverbank

This time 12 years ago:
Okęcie before the funerals

This time 13 years ago:
At the General's house

The spreading city - a vicious circle

I've not been to Nowa Iwiczna for several months; most of my rambles south of Jeziorki have been around the S7 extension roadworks west of the railway line. From the border of Warsaw, south of W-wa Jeziorki station, I take the footpath following the railway to its east (below) - this was once the path of the siding into the runs parallel to the rampa na kruszywa (aggregate transshipment ramp). 

Below: crossing the border (ulica Graniczna) between Mysiadło and Nowa Iwiczna, I notice that the path has widened and hardened for vehicular access. Soon I see why - a development of ten homes, two terraces of five houses on ul. Torowa (lit. 'track street'). Any space that a developer can squeeze in more housing - even if it's right by the railway line (you can make out the electricity gantries beyond the trees to the left). The row of houses to the left are less than 50m from the coal train line - which residents of Osiedle Etap by W-wa Jeziorki station complain bitterly above despite being twice as far away.

Below: the same thing is happening around the corner on newly-built ul. Turystyczna (lit. 'touristic street'), also in Nowa Iwiczna. Here, the houses are less than 30m away from the line, although there are no frequent passenger trains using the line here - only the long, heavy and loud coal trains. Photo taken from the pedestrian-only level crossing (bicycles can cross too - but you'd be hard pressed to get a motorbike past the barriers).

From this development to Nowa Iwiczna station is an eight-minute walk via that crossing. But to drive to the station is a journey of at least 2.6km, entailing two level crossings. I suspect walking makes sense to all but the laziest polluter-commuter. An alternative to taking the train is driving to town, along ul. Puławska, notorious for its traffic jams. Below: the section of ul. Puławska from ul. Energetyczna to ul. Okulickiego in Piaseczno is being widened to three lanes each way; a bottleneck bunging up the road. I can only hope that the long-(like ten years or more) delayed bus lanes for Puławska will finally appear. No excuse - especially now that the S2 tunnel has opened.

We know how all road-widening ends; "It's so much easier to drive to town!" More people do so, leading quickly to more congestion and calls for further road-widening. Meanwhile, as seen in the photos above, more and more development, more housing, more people, are moving out into Warsaw's suburbs. I can only hope that the growth of working from home will reduce numbers of people needing to make the daily trip to town, and once the pandemic has eased people will feel more comfortable using public transport and ditch the car.

For my Polish readers, this carbon-footprint calculator, courtesy of BNP Paribas, is worth looking at, in case you feel you're doing your bit to save the climate. It's sobering.

[Postscript, 9 January 2022: at the northern end of ul. Główna, Bobrowiec, less than 5km from Nowa Iwiczna, I see another development arising out of the fields. Sprayed on the chipboard surrounding the building site are the words: Jebać szeregowce - "Fuck terraced houses".]

[Postscript, 12 January 2022: fellow Warsaw blogger Student SGH sent me this wonderful photo from Nowa Iwiczna - the promise clashes with the reality. On a new house, a large banner proclaiming 'I wouldn't buy this house a second time'. Caveat emptor.

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New sewers, new estate

This time two years ago:

The ultra-rich - deserving, or not

This time six years ago:
Globalisation and its part in PiS's return to power

This time seven years ago:
UK overtakes France as the world's fifth-largest economy

This time 11 years ago:
Wetlands winter meltdown

This time 12 years ago:
Winter's walk to work

This time 13 years ago:
Winter drivetime, Jeziorki North