Weeding the tracks / rail photo update

What's this I see coming down the line towards Chynów station? I'm waiting for a train to town (from the other direction); no passenger service is scheduled on the southbound line... I get my camera and zoom in. Interesting. It crosses the points from the 'down' line, across the 'up' line, and finally ends up on the passing loop line by Platform 3.

Below: the train pulls into the side platform. Just five wagons long, three of which are cisterns...

I have ten minutes before my train to town is due; time enough to catch a snap of the entire rake or formation from the footpath east of the station.

Let's take a look at one of the cisterns...

The shunting engine at the head of the train is uncoupled and off it goes on its own...

Time to get back to the platform to catch my train to town. On my return from Warsaw, I look it up and find out what this is... It is a CHOT train (Chemiczna Odchwaszczarka Torów CHOT-50A, or chemical de-weeder of tracks). The train consists of a diesel locomotive, three cisterns and a crew wagon and a shunter at the other end. By the time I returned from Warsaw four hours later, the weedkiller train had moved on, presumably its job done. 

Meanwhile, into town. Below: the tram/train interchange at W-wa Wola, completed last year. An SKM train from Piaseczno to Zegrze Południowe approach W-wa Wola station overhead. All well and good in terms of connections here and at W-wa Młynów (with Line 2 of the Metro) one stop further on – but will trains from the Radom line finally return to the city centre? 

There's something about the yellow-and-red livery of Warsaw trams against a blue sky that appeals to my sense of aesthetics. Below: two trams passing at Plac Zbawiciela.

In that post from April 2024, I asked rhetorically whether it will be eight months or a year and eight months until the tunnel for passengers under W-wa Zachodnia is finally ready. Well, it wasn't the former. Will it be ready in another four months? Touch and go, I think... In the meanwhile, crossing from Platform 1 (WKD) to Platform 9 (for the Radom line) still necessitates walking up and down many flights of steps or taking a 700 metre-long step-free diversion. Watching elderly folk lugging their suitcases up the steps makes me wonder just how bothered are the infrastructure operators, contractors and subcontractors to get the job finished quickly, or how aware they are of the massive inconvenience of their tardiness. Below: view from the top of the steps from the footbridge looking down at one of the bus stops on the north side of the station.

Below: I'm looking down on W-wa Zachodnia, when I should be looking up at it from the glass-ceilinged tunnel

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Below: taken one evening last week, I poke my lens through the barrier and down towards the unopened tunnel. It will make changing platforms at W-wa Zachodnia far easier. But then I've seen precious little progress here since the last great leap forward in October. Over the intervening ten months, all that's happened is that a) you can now get an escalator up to platform 9 and b) platform 9 has working digital display panels with real-time information.

Below: back to Chynów, and the spectacle of the Kraków-bound InterCity express train overtaking the Radom-bound local Koleje Mazowieckie service on the wrong track. This can happen at quarter to most hours if the express is running a few minutes late.

Below: a coupled-pair of ET41 locos hauls a coal train through Chynów bound for Siekierki power station. The train goes into the sidings south of W-wa Okęcie station; from there it is diesel-hauled to Konstancin-Jeziorna sidings, and from there on to Siekierki.

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Dave: An Emissary

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This time four years ago:
The Curve (and one's place on it)

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Grodzisk Mazowiecki's pretty station

This time 13 years ago:
Exorcism outside the President's Palace

This time 14 years ago:
The raging footsoldier - a story about anger

This time 15 years ago:
Graffiti and street art 

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.
 

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My first blog post on W-wa Jeziorki

August sunsets around Chynów

The climax of a summer evening's walk should be catching the sunset.

Below: the evening had been heavily overcast, with a downpour threatening - it didn't happen - the clouds passed and a narrow slit of clear sky, just above the horizon, let the setting sun shine upon the landscape... Just north of Piekut. 

Below: south of Gaj Żelechowski - suddenly, I noticed this splendid sight...

Below: I walked towards the setting sun to get it fill the frame...

Below: Another evening, another sunset to chase... Chynów, towards Nowe Grobice, approaching the highest local height as the sun nears the horizon.

Below: looking towards the northern edge of Chynów, the unpaved ulica Miodowa.

Below: this rare Earth. Treat it well. Let nature flourish.

Below: today was the mirror opposite of yesterday; rather than emerge from the clouds for a final farewell, the sun dipped behind a cloud bank with a quarter of an hour to go.

Below: a freight train on the Warsaw-Radom line; because there's not enough current in the overhead lines to power heavy goods trains, they have to be diesel-hauled between Czachówek and Radom. Here's a Freightliner PL Class 66 pulling a rake of coal wagons. Note the air-conditioning units above the cabs at either end of the loco.

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"Don't call me Czachówek - my name is Gabryelin"

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Accounting for Coincidence
[The Henry Cow-Benjamin Piekut story] (There's Piekut again!)

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Działka food

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Proper summer in Warsaw

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Poland's trains failing in the heat

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"Learn from your mystics is my only advice"

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Running with the storm on the road to Mamrotowo

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St Pancras Station - new gateway to London

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More blues and greens from early summer

Blue and green continue to dominate - top temperatures exceeding 25C, but interspersed with rain in reasonable amounts. The sublime summer. I feel like I want to go to one specific place - so off I set.

Below: the fields between Jeziorki (in Warsaw), and - in the distance - Mysiadło (not in Warsaw), the treeline marking the border. Crops coming up nicely. With the geopolitical situation as it is, the worst thing that could happen to agriculture is flooding or drought.

From Mysiadło to Nowa Iwiczna, I walk along the track of the old sidings for the agglomerate ramp (below), ripped up to make way for one housing estate (didn't happen); the area was then earmarked for an even bigger housing project (again didn't happen). So, lots of recreational land remains.

 Below: how it once looked here, with rails in situ. Photo taken February 2008, nearer the Jeziorki end.

Below: at the other end, in a small tongue of Zgorzała that crosses the tracks, a small development of about a dozen houses is being built.

Below: across ulica Krasickiego in Nowa Iwiczna, where the unelectrified coal train* line curves away from the main Warsaw-Radom line. A Warsaw-bound Koleje Mazowieckie Impuls train rushes by. These trains pick up a nice turn of speed, necessitating longer stops at stations to fit the same timetables as the old stock.

Below: I reach my destination - the pedestrian level crossing across the coal line. Photo taken from Nowa Iwiczna; beyond the houses in the immediate front line facing the tracks lies Stara Iwiczna. A sudden yearning to visit this spot led me here.

*Just as I'm indexing 'coal train' under Labels, John Coltrane's tenor sax solo kicks in Miles Davis's So What on YouTube

This time last year:

Warsaw West station under construction

This time seven years ago:
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Gdynia, on the beach, six am

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Era becomes T-Mobile

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Warsaw-Góra Kalwaria-Pilawa rail link closed

This time 13 years ago:
Marsh harrier, golden airliner over Jeziorki

This time 14 years ago:
Bus blaze on way to town

This time 15 years ago:
A beautiful, stormy twilight

Return to Konstancin-Jeziorna coal sidings

Hunting the railway vibe, the klimaty kolejowe; going where the coal trains go. A long walk across the southern edge of the Las Kabacki, then on to the railway sidings at Konstancin-Jeziorna

Below: looking down at the sidings from the slight rise at the western end. The middle line runs straight through with two set of sidings on either side, all of them long enough to accommodate the longest rake of coal wagons (typically 40 in one set). Full trains (2,000 tonnes of coal) go from here to Siekierki power station; empties come here from Siekierki to be picked up and returned to the sidings south of W-wa Okęcie station, 14km away. 

Below: a rake of empties has just arrived on the second track, the engine the brought them in has been uncoupled, it ran forward, changed onto the middle track to run back to Siekierki. With summer on the way, there's fewer full coal trains heading to the power station. The manoeuvre done, the level crossing gates rise, and many cyclists crosses the tracks, heading to Konstancin (right of pic) or Powsin and Las Kabacki (left of pic). Click to enlarge.

Below: the train standing on the first track in the pic above is pulling out of the sidings and onto the single track towards Okęcie via Piaseczno and Nowa Iwiczna. Level crossing with barriers on ulica Wąska ('Narrow Street') and on the other side of the tracks - ul. Saneczkowa ('Toboggan Street).

Below: heading up hill, a gentle ten-metre rise over 1.7km as the line approaches - but does not enter - the Las Kabacki forest. The level crossing on ul. Głowackiego in Kierszek is close to the border of Warsaw and the forest. Foreshortening effect of telephoto lens zoomed out to 300mm makes the hill look steeper than it is .

Below: looking back towards the sidings from the end of the disused siding, that can be seen on the right of the photo above.

Below: the way things were, April 2008. View from the other end of the sidings, from the level crossing on ul. Warszawska. The train on the middle track is moving away; it has one engine at the back, pushing, and another at the front, pulling. These days, the modernised SM48 locos can pull a whole loaded train unassisted.

There are plans to upgrade this line to a passenger line, which I must say would be a splendid idea (offering a new connection across Warsaw's southern suburbs). It's been talked about for ages (usually just before local elections - see this PR visit), but at last there's a master plan being drawn up, which in February last year was said to be three and half years away. So a reality by 2030? One can but hope... The line won't be a part of the government's Kolei Plus programme, which will be restoring 34 disused and partially disused lines to passenger service, rather this line will be part of a metropolitan project devised by the City of Warsaw. 

I returned by 710 bus from Klarysew, mainly to see the new route linking Konstancin and Kabaty - ul. Stefana Korbońskiego, a sorely needed thoroughfare for local residents. When I say 'new', it opened to traffic in December 2017 (!) this was my first visit here! Below: before boarding the bus - busy scene in Konstancin. Flags out for the 3 May public holiday, the red-and-white repeated on the level crossing barriers and road signs. In the absence of a direct Jeziorki-Konstancin train, I took the 710 bus to Kabaty, Metro to Stokłosy, then 715 bus home. Total walking today: 18,500 paces.

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This time four years ago:
New roads and rails

This time six years ago:
The Gold Train shoot - lessons learned

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Digbeth, Birmingham 5

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Still months away from the opening of the S2/S79 

This time ten years ago: 
Looking at progress along the S79  

This time 11 years ago:
Snow on 3 May

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Two Polands

This time 13 years ago:
A delightful weekend in the country

This time 14 years ago:
The dismantling of the Rampa

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Flag day