Odolany – Warsaw's railway reserve

I have posted a few times about the tangle of tracks to the north-east of Warsaw West (W-wa Zachodnia) station; much of this area has been cleaned up. [See here from 2013, and  here from 2014]

But north-west of W-wa Zachodnia, in the neighbourhood of Odolany, part of the district of Wola, there's an enormous network of railway sidings, of which over 30 hectares are entirely disused. This area is not closed off; footpaths criss-cross the area, which lies nearer to the centre of Warsaw than neighbourhoods like Stegny or Sadyba – one would think prime development land for residential estates.

The klimat reminds me of that which permeates Andrei Tarkovsky's magnificently atmospheric 1979 film Stalker; post-industrial abandonment, secrets, decay. Below: a typical scene within the Zone; a multiplicity of abandoned tracks, on rotting wooden sleepers, often with trees growing between them. 

Left: trees and bushes growing ever denser through and around the abandoned track. One has to ask why PKP PLK S.A., the railway infrastructure operator, hasn't lifted the rails for recycling and turned the area over into parkland, or to rewild it as a nature sanctuary. Below: an abandoned signal box or points-keeper's hut. In the distance, further rows of disused track.

Left: three or more pairs of parallel rows of abandoned tracks, trees growing between the rails. In the distance, some blue buildings are just about visible between the branches and leaves... 

Below: pushing through the undergrowth, I emerge onto what are live tracks; rails polished silver through use, with overhead gantries providing power to electric engines that use this line. This turns out to be the maintenance depot for freight locomotives.

I turn around and head back into the undergrowth, this time moving northwestward, across several disused tracks. Emerging from the bushes on the other side, I catch the following astonishing sight. It looks like some sort of grain elevator... 

I get up closer. This (I later learn) is the former coaling station for steam engines. The 42m-high coal tower itself is one of four such surviving structures in Poland (the UK has only one left).

Below: in its shadow to its east stands a building that I cannot figure out; why the canopy? Why the low and short platform? Why here? Looks like a waiting room at a passenger station from the 1960s. Odd.

The coaling tower itself was built between 1948 and 1951 – and here's a surprise – from precast concrete elements donated to Poland by the US government, delivered by sea as part of the technical assistance post-WW2. This, at the height of Stalinism.

Left: the coaling tower seen from the west. The conveyors that raised coal to the top of the tower were removed when it was decommissioned in the early 1990s. It stood abandoned, until a group of preservationists persuaded the voivodship heritage administrator of its historical significance, earning it listed-building status in February 2024.

On either side of the lines on which the coaling tower stands are aggregate storage facilities (Budokrusz to the north, Warbud to the south). Both are served by trains, delivering construction materials to the busy sites. Walking along the line towards to the coaling tower, I could hear the non-stop sound of diggers loading and unloading aggregate.

As I proceeded in a westerly direction, the disused tracks started to converge with live tracks leading from the aggregate sites and the freight-loco maintenance sheds. Below: the rails are no longer covered with rust; signals show that the track is indeed live (there was a Freightliner PL Class 66 locomotive manoeuvring slowly off to my left). Time to return to the urban hubbub of rush-hour Warsaw. 

Below: a series of bridges carry the freight lines over ulica Dżwigowa (lit. 'Crane Street' – crane as in machine to move materials). To my right are the busy sidings of Warszawa Główna Towarowa, Warsaw's main freight station. At this stage, I leave the rails and return to the street for a short walk to W-wa Włochy station and my train to Ożarów Mazowiecki, for an evening business event.

I must point out that nowhere along my journey did I pass any 'entry prohibited' sign, or cross any fence. Around Warsaw West station, the sidings are properly enclosed behind wire fences; not so further east.

If you want to watch Stalker, for free, with English subtitles, it's here. Set aside three hours. If you've not seen it, do. It's worth it.

This time last year:

The Thought Inside: get it out!

This time three years ago:
Spring magic 

This time seven years ago:
Building work almost done on the działka

This time eight year:
Karczunkowska's closed again

This time nine years ago:
Little suitcase in the attic
[It's still at Schindler's Factory in Kraków for the year-long Children of War exhibition there]

This time ten years ago:
What I read each week.

This time 12 years ago:
Defending Poland, contributing to NATO

This time 14 years ago:
Balloon over Warsaw 

This time 16 years ago:
Happiness, Polish-style

This time 19 years ago:
London (to which I'm not planning to return)

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

Snowy New Year

A heavy dump of snow on New Year's Eve paralysed communications across Poland; the railway line to Warsaw suffered badly. The record delay was suffered by the Kormoran InterCity train from Kraków to Olsztyn... I saw it standing at Chynów station, doors open, passengers out on the snowy platform for an illicit smoke. The Kormoran left Kraków at 13:38, everything going well until it got beyond Warka. At Chynów, the train was halted because of some major issue at Czachówek (frozen points? Power lines? Don't know. Nobody knew). 

Below: two trains at Chynów going nowhere. Massive disruption up and down the line. I peeked in through the windows of the InterCity train... Lots of party people on their way to Warsaw, dressed up in their finery. The bar wagon was crammed with standing passengers, quite a few necking bottles of Łomża beer. Outside, the conductors of both trains paced the platform, one hand on their walkie-talkie, the other on their mobile phone. It appears that nobody knows anything...

After a long delay, the express train was allowed to proceed, though at little more than walking pace. It reached Piaseczno two and half hours behind schedule. And there, the poor Kormoran finally threw in the hat. Kaput. A rescue locomotive had to be sent from Warsaw for it, while passengers were boarded onto a Koleje Mazowieckie train to town, and in Warsaw they were assigned a replacement train. This consisted of a locomotive and eight carriages – but unlike the Kormoran, it did not have a restaurant wagon or bar facilities. Passengers finally arrived at Olsztyn Główny station at twenty past midnight – over four hours late. Today, the returning Kormoran was likewise hit by woe. At Nidzica, 58km south of Olsztyn, the overhead electric cables were severed by a fallen tree, snapped by the weight of snow. The train had to be hauled all the way back to Olsztyn, where passengers were boarded onto replacement buses. So – not a good start to 2026 for those travelling across Poland.

The first proper snow since 24 November, and the country was unprepared for it. Here in Jakubowizna, about five inches (12cm) of snow has covered the ground. With the cats out, I had the ideal opportunity to see how far they range. The answer is – not far at all! They tend to troop around my garden, and into the forest next door, and, judging by the sets of paw-prints, not much further.

Below: a rare view of the west side of my house, taken from the drive leading to my next-door neighbours' houses. I followed Wenusia's paw-prints here; she is a frequent visitor around these parts.

Below: the gorgeous Céleste, bounding through the snow. She is in her element, more so than her brothers, her long hair an evolutionary adaptation for life in sub-Arctic conditions. 

The snow is likely to stay for a while, as the forecast is a high of +2°C tomorrow followed by a week of sub-zero temperatures.

This time last year:
Poland's Progress

This time two years ago
Time, memory and consciousness

This time three years ago:
Hottest New Year's Day in Warsaw ever 

This time four years ago
"Communication/this is the gift you must not lose"

This time five years ago:
Wealth and inequality – an introduction

This time seven years ago:
Gratitude for a peaceful 2018

This time nine years ago:
Fighting laziness – the perennial resolution

This time eight years ago:
A Year of Round Anniversaries

This time ten years ago:
Walking on frozen water

This time 11 years ago:
Fireworks herald 2015 in Jeziorki

This time 12 years ago
Jeziorki welcomes 2014

This time 13 years ago:
LOT's second Dreamliner over Jeziorki

This time 14 years ago:
New Year's coal train 

This time 17 years ago:
Welcome to 2009!

This time 18 years ago:
Happy 2008!

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

New cycle provision at Chynów station

The speed is amazing. It wasn't here yesterday evening when I returned from town – and now lookie here! Eight brand-new bicycle stands. Installed this morning. Można? Można! I had complained about the lack of sufficient cycle provision earlier this year, when I saw 17 bikes chained up at this side of the station , and only four stands. Each one is for two bikes, so the remainder were left tied to the fence (right) or to the handrails going down into the pedestrian tunnel. A nuisance for many, a hazard for a few.

The new stands are marvellous news, and a sign of a new commitment from rail infrastructure operator PKP PLK. I photographed the sign below in Warka station two years ago. The answer to the problem of where to leave your bike wasn't to put up more bike stands, but to threaten cyclists with confiscation of their property should they chain their bikes incorrectly.

Attention!

The fastening of bicycles to barriers is prohibited.

Vehicles left will be removed at the owner's costs.

And as the number of cycle-using passengers grow, so PKP PLK should continue to provide more and more stands. Then we get a virtuous circle. (Motorists – apart from anything else, driving your car ultra-short distances twice a day is really bad for internal-combustion engines. Walk or cycle. Fifteen minutes there, fifteen back – good daily exercise.)

And work on the new pavements connecting Jakubowizna to ulica Wspólna and ul. Wspólna to ul. Wolska is already under way (below). I am really impressed at the tempo. I presume that once the pavement's been laid, the next job will be putting down a hard surface on the station car park (the former goods yard). Not too bad today, but when it rains, it's gloopy mud from edge to edge.

Below: recording another new bit of infrastructure – newly laid asphalt on the lane leading off Jakubowizna's main street. This part of Jakubowizna is known locally as 'Działki'.

This time last year:
Poland's sleeper-train services for 2025

This time two years ago:
UFO/UAP disclosure – current state

This time 10 years ago:
A tiny bit of pavement for Karczunkowska

This time 13 years ago:
Welcome to the machine, Mr Kaczyński

This time 15 years ago:
'F' is for 'Franco', not 'Fascist' [Prescient post!]

This time 17 years ago:
Christmas lights: all in the best possible taste

This time 18 years ago:
Letter from Russia

Poland's sleeper train services: changes for 2026

With the new 2025/2026 railway timetable coming into effect today, there have been significant expansions to Poland’s night-train network. Having said that, there are reductions in the number of services with sleeper/couchette coaches. There are new international connection from southern Poland to Germany and Austria, while some internal routes in Poland have been extended.

The ongoing war in Ukraine has been a major driver behind the expansion of Poland's night-train services. Look at FlightRadar24.com's map of Ukraine, you'll see no civilian aviation overhead.  Ukrainian citizens wishing to travel internationally cannot do so safely through Belarus or Russia, and so must cross the border into Poland by road or rail. Polish railway stations close to the Ukrainian border – Przemyśl Główny and Chełm – now see vastly more cross-border traffic, many of those being Ukrainians wishing to head on further west by train.

So – this post is an overview of existing and new night train services, starting with those that connect Warsaw with the mountains and the sea...

Note the difference between a night train (one that travels at night) and a sleeper train (one that has specialised coaches allowing passengers to travel lying down on a bed). All sleeper trains are night trains, but not all night trains are sleeper trains, as you will see below.

 The cheaper version of the sleeper is the couchette, which has six mixed-sex passengers to a compartment; you sleep lying down but clothed. A proper sleeper is either three-berth, two-berth or individual (really expensive!) accommodation. The two/three berth sleeper cabins are single-sex but couples/families can reserve cabins for themselves. 

Below: a two-berth sleeper cabin, as featured on IC (InterCity) services. The surviving TLK (Twoje Linie Kolejowe) services features old-school sleeper carriages for that nostalgia vibe. And less comfort.

Sleeper trains are 100% safe. They have just one door to the outside at one end of the carriage; there's a conductor/guard on duty all night at the end of each corridor, and cabins can be closed from the inside with a chain. I cannot, however, vouch for the security of non-sleeper coaches at night with such absolute certainty, although it's over 20 years since I last heard of a theft.

So, to go through Poland's sleeper services, I'll break them down into those that serve Warsaw, those that bypass Warsaw, and finish on the international services.

Sleeper trains from Warsaw/ passing through Warsaw

A major change to my favourite sleeper, the Uznam, in this year's timetable change, is the fact that it now runs east beyond Warsaw. The service to Świnoujście now goes all the way through to Chełm on the Ukrainian border via Lublin. This makes the journey 708km (440 miles) end to end. It also manages to hook round via Łódź, as well as calling in at Poznań and Szczecin, thus connecting five provincial capitals, enhancing its usefulness.

The IC 440 Uznam departs Chełm at 18:28, calling at Lublin at 19:22, Warsaw East at 21:34, (an hour earlier than in last year's timetable), then shortly after at Warsaw Central and Warsaw West. It passes Łódź Widzew at 23:35, Poznań Główny at 02:40, Szczecin Główny at 05:09 before finally arriving at Świnoujście at 06:37. Note: this train has no name westbound! Be careful when boarding the westbound IC 440, because this train splits at Poznań Główny. Some coaches go on to Szczecin and Świnoujście (at 03:10), but others head west to Berlin as the IC 430 (see below), leaving Poznań at 03:19. The night-train service to Berlin has no sleeper coaches. This service between Chełm and the German capital suggests that many of the passengers will be Ukrainians.

IC 82170 Uznam: Świnoujście – Chełm (dep. 21:30 arr. 09:26) is the return service. It passes through Warsaws West (05:45), Central and East, before heading on to Lublin and Chełm. The train is already in the platform well ahead of departure time, so passengers can board early and get themselves comfortable before it sets off. 

Taking the Uznam there and back from Warsaw in summer gives you the best part of 12 hours on the beach. With a hotel or apartment from Saturday to Sunday, you can get a full weekend of Baltic sun-and-sea, having left the office on Friday evening, to be back to the office first thing Monday morning. The extension to Chełm via Lublin (and indeed Otwock) will be great news for those in eastern Poland wishing to dip their toes in the Baltic. 

********

No change with the Karkonosze, the sleeper + couchette services that runs from Warsaw to the Sudety mountains in the south-west, close to the Czech border. The Karkonosze runs all the way through to the resort town of Szklarska Poręba, though only in the winter timetable; it terminates at Jelenia Góra in summer. This is another sleeper train that I've used many times, though never beyond Jelenia Góra.

IC 16170 Karkonosze: Warszawa Wschodnia – Szklarska Poręba Górna (dep. 23:36 arr. 07:53). The Karkonosze returns to the mountains, calling in at Łódź Widzew (01:05), Wrocław Główny (04:25), Wałbrzych Główny (05:58) and Jelenia Góra (06:46) along the way. 

IC 61170 Karkonosze: Szklarska Poręba Górna – Warszawa Wschodnia (dep. 20:19 arr. 06:15). Departing a bit earlier than in last year's timetable, the return service now arrives in Warsaw more than an hour later, which gives passengers more snooze-time on board. Taking this train lets skiers and hikers get a weekend-full of mountain air and get back before their offices open on Monday morning, having had a good sleep on the train. 

********

There's a new Warsaw-Berlin night train, the IC 440 (no name, not good news)... with no sleeper coaches. Westbound, it departs from Chełm, at 18:48, passing through Warsaw's three stations, East, Central and West, between 21:34 and 22:21 including a 33-minute stop at Warsaw Central. It then proceeds at a leisurely pace through Łódź and onto Poznań, where it splits in two. Carriages go on to Świnoujście (as the IC 430, see below), the rest continues on to Berlin (re-named the EC 430 on crossing the border), arriving at Berlin-Charlottenburg at 06:27 (passing through Berlins Ost, Hbf and Zoo). Travelling all night sitting up is hell. Something for young people only. I suspect the main users of this service will be Ukrainian citizens who are expected to have limited travel budgets and enhanced resilience.

The eastbound EC 441 starts in Berlin-Gesundbrunnen, departing at 20:42, passing through Berlin-Lichtenberg before crossing the border into Poland (re-named the IC 441 as it does so). It reaches Poznań Główny after midnight, and here it waits an hour to hook up with coaches from the IC 82170 (see below). Some passengers will need to move to other coaches here. This train now heads onward through Łódź, Warsaw and Lublin, arriving at Chełm near the Ukrainian border at 09:26.

********

IC 38170 Ustronie: Kraków Główny – Kołobrzeg (dep. 21:03 arr. 10:23). Year-round seaside-special for folks from Poland's south, calling at Kielce, Radom, Warsaw East and the Tri-City on its way to the resorts of Ustronie and Kołobrzeg. Full sleeper and couchette service. You can use this train as a nocturnal connection between Warsaw Central (dep. 01:53) and Gdańsk Główny (arr. 05:55, Gdynia 20 minutes later), though with four hours between the two cities, you'll not get quality sleep-time. The Ustronie also calls at Warka (01:07) and Piaseczno (01:27) on the way. Takes its time; 13 hours 20 minutes to cover 568km. 

IC 83170 Ustronie: Kołobrzeg – Kraków Główny (dep. 19:15, arr. 07:26). Passing through Warsaw Central at 03:25. The train is a useful nocturnal connection for Varsovians needing to be in Kraków for early business meetings. Departs Warka at 04:14 in time for breakfast in Kraków.

********

TLK 35170 Karpaty: Zakopane – Gdynia Główna (dep. 21:53, arr. 08:40) From the mountains to the sea, direct, 867 km. Not upgraded to IC, so fans of old-school rolling stock can still experience the veneered wood, moquette upholstery and general clunkiness of the sleeper carriages. This is the very last TLK sleeper train, so enthusiasts of the genre should make the most before its inevitable replacement by an IC service with modern coaches. The Karpaty also functions as another nocturnal sleeper train connection between Kraków, Warsaw and the Tri-City (calling in Kraków Główny at midnight, stopping at Warsaw Central at 04:36 for nearly half an hour before proceeding towards Gdańsk Główny at 08:13). The Karpaty now skips Piotrków Trybunalski, taking the CMK through Idzikowice after its stop in Częstochowa. 

TLK 53170 Karpaty: Gdynia Główna – Zakopane (dep: 19:22, arr: 06:02) On the way back from Gdynia to Zakopane, the Karpaty leaves Gdynia at an early hour for a sleeper service, passing through Warsaw Central at 23:23 and arriving in Kraków at 03:30. This means Krakovians can get home after a late night in the capital. The Polish mountains are connected to the Polish sea by night train again – but unlike the Szklarska Poręba service, this one runs all year round.

********

Sleeper trains/night trains that avoid Warsaw

IC 83172 Podhalanin from Świnoujście (dep. 18:55) to Zakopane (arr. 08:33). A proper sleeper service with new-style sleeper and couchette options as well as seats. That's 13 hours, 38 minutes to cover 983km, passing through Szczecin, Poznań, Łódź Kaliska, Częstochowa and Kraków. Bring your own food – there's no restaurant carriage.

On the way back, the IC 38172 Podhalanin leaves Zakopane at 20:22 and arrives at Świnoujście at 09:21. Just under 13 hours. Again, sleeper accommodation, but no food.

********

The night-train connection between Świnoujście and Przemyśl, the north-west and south-east extremes of Poland, takes a slightly different route as of this year's timetable change. It now calls in at Katowice, making it seven provincial capitals along the way – Rzeszów, Kraków, Katowice, Opole, Wrocław, Poznań and Szczecin. A long train journey (994km/618 miles).

The night services linking Poland's two diagonal opposites look complicated in the new timetable. Heading north-west from Przemyśl (dep. 18:54) to Świnoujście (arr. 06:07), the IC 430 train has sleeper carriages, but going south-east, from Świnoujście (dep. 21:30) to Przemyśl (arr. 09:11), it does not! The IC 82170 /IC 431 night train from Świnoujście to Przemyśl has lost is name (it was formerly the Przemyślanin) as well as its sleeper carriages. At Poznań (arr. 00:56), there's a change of rolling stock. There is now a couchette option, though only for disabled passengers; there are now air-conditioned coaches with first-class accommodation added to the train for the onward journey to Przemyśl. Presumably, if you have bought first-class tickets you'll need to move. This train pulls out of Poznań Główny at 01:26 as the IC 431. The decision to drop the sleeper option from Świnoujście to Przemyśl is weird and not a good sign.

********

Another night train with no name and no sleeper carriages that connects Przemyśl and the seaside is the IC 33172. It leaves Przemyśl Główny at 20:07 and reaches the seaside resort of Ustka 1,107km away, at 09:22, calling at Kraków, Łódź Kaliska, Poznań, Koszalin and Słupsk. Ustka is about halfway between Kołobrzeg and Gdynia. 

The return, also without a sleeper option, is the IC 87172, which departs Ustka station at 18:05, reaching Poznań Główny at 22:20. Here it connects with the IC 83172 for the rest of the journey on to Przemyśl, where it arrives at 08:01. Another hell-train that I do not intend to take, ever. Unless sleeper carriages are added.

********

The TLK Rozewie sleeper-train service from the seaside to the mountains has been ditched and replaced with the nameless IC 461 train from Gdynia Główna (dep. 21:57) to Szklarska Poręba Górna (arr. 07:53) travelling overnight but without sleeper or couchette coaches. Ten hours. 760km. Via Toruń, Bydgoszcz, Poznań, Wrocław, Wałbrzych and Jelenia Góra. Overnight. No lying down. Murder. Trójmiasto skiers; you have been warned.

********

International sleeper-train services

Here, the most notable changes for this year's timetable are additional connections between Poland and western Europe. Check rozklad.pkp.pl for full details – too complex to include them here, given how the trains split up into different sections for different destinations.

EN Carpatia (new launch): route: Przemyśl – Rzeszów – Kraków – Munich (via Ostrava, Vienna, Salzburg). A new daily EuroNight service, linking southeast Poland directly with Bavaria and the Austrian Alps. Carries couchette and full sleeper coaches as well as seating. Coaches are added to provide direct links to Budapest and Bratislava.

********

TLK Baltic Express has been upgraded this year to a provide permanent year-round daily overnight service (no longer just summer season), from Gdynia to Prague via Bydgoszcz, skipping Łódź in this year's timetable (to my daughter's displeasure, a client PKP has lost to Flixbus). The Baltic Express includes a sleeper-carriage service.

********

EN Chopin: this classic train continues to run between Warsaw and Kraków then on to 1) Vienna and Munich, 2) Prague, and 3) Bratislava and Budapest, splitting into three once it crosses the Czech border (usually at Bohumín and Breclav). Includes high-standard sleepers (including deluxe cabins with showers), couchettes, as well as ordinary seating.

********

EN Metropol: connecting Berlin to Budapest/Vienna, passing through southwestern Poland along the way (stopping at Rzepin/Zielona Góra/Wrocław/Racibórz). While often seen as a German or Hungarian train, it serves Polish passengers boarding in Silesia/Lubuskie heading to Berlin,Vienna or Budapest overnight.

*********

There are also a number of services connecting Poland with Ukraine. These remain a critical lifeline service. You may find details online from Chełm and Przemyśl stations.

Direct sleeper routes to/from Russia (Moscow/St. Petersburg) and Belarus remain suspended indefinitely. These all-sleeper coach services from Moscow and Minsk used to run on to Paris and Nice.

I suspect that next year's timetable update will see further expansions of Polish and international night-train network, and I hope that more sleeper coaches will be brought onstream. I would not wish anyone under the age of 35 to travel overnight slumped in an ordinary train seat. It has to be beds. Taking a sleeper train means you get hotel accommodation and delivery to your destination in one ticket. 

This time last year:
Slow progress, but the healing goes on

This time two years ago:
A mind-blowing dream

This time three years ago:
Utter, utter gorgeousness

This time four years ago:
Hoar frost and proper ice, Jeziorki

This time seven years ago:
Alcohol, servant not master

This time ten years ago:

Classic car quiz, 2015

This time 11 years ago:

Classic British Car Quiz, 2014

This time 12 years ago:

The poet's gift - an exploration into Why One Writes

This time 13 years ago:

Advertising H&M on Warszawa Centralna station

This time 14 years ago:

Jeziorki in the snow

This time 18 years ago:

Staying Underground: Piccadilly Circus

Chynów station – the clean-up begins

The pace of progress and improvement of infrastructure continues at pace. It is clear to me why Poland's economy is growing so fast – the nation is getting on with it!

I wrote in late-September about rail-infrastructure operator PKP PLK's Dworce Przyjazne Pasażerom ('passenger-friendly stations') project that would include Chynów station. By late-November, a contract had been signed between the local authority and a general contractor. And earlier this week, work got under way. Super fast! From project announcement to spades in the ground in less than three months! (In the UK this would be dragging on for years, with appeal courts upholding the rights of one householder to block the construction of a pedestrian crossing.)

The scope of work includes: laying down nearly one kilometer of new pavement from ul. Wspólna to ul. Wolska (brilliant!), new asphalt and (I hope) a pavement from the level crossing at Jakubowizna to ul. Wspólna (hurrah!), new parking spaces, including a 'Kiss & Ride' zone next to the station building, cleaning up the area around the railway station – demolishing three disused outbuildings opposite ul. Wspólna, removing the old fence, clearing undergrowth, and generally cleaning up the area between the station and level crossing. The vast number of empty vodka bottles and beer cans suggest that this was a popular hang-out for the local enthusiasts of outdoor drinking. 

Below: accommodation for station staff. It still looks inhabited... interesting to see whether it survives the bulldozer, and if so – will it be renovated? And if so, how will it look?

Below: the building in the foreground looks like an agricultural outhouse, in which the stationmaster's family kept livestock and farm equipment to tend the small plot adjoining their house. It was common for Polish stationmasters and other railway employees living in official railway housing to keep livestock. This practice was primarily a necessity for food self-sufficiency, though it faded away in the 1980s and '90s.

The area around the Chynów railway station has been a bit of a mess for years, and the contrast between the new platforms and the parking chaos outside is stark. A lack of parking spaces results in commuters  often parking in a way that obstructs access. There's also a lack of sufficient numbers of places to secure bicycles; these end up being tied to fences and handrails. Pedestrians have to put up with the discontinuity of pavements and unpaved access to platforms, which is particularly troublesome – and dangerous – in autumn and winter, what with the unlit road.

Below: the old goods yard forms a huge makeshift car-park, yet it is unasphalted/unpaved, and is currently ankle-deep in mud in many places. And there's no direct access from this car-park to the platforms, other than walking the long way around the station building. There should be a gate for passengers at the southern end of the platform (around the middle of the photo). This would encourage more local motorists to leave their cars here and take the train to town. In the meanwhile, rubble from the demolished outhouses and fencing is collected here prior to removal.

More semi-fast (przyspieszone) trains calling at Chynów would also boost that encouragement. Twenty-three minutes from here to Warsaw Służewiec station? That's amazing. We have four such trains into town in the morning, and four back from town in the evening. But the two semi-fast trains to Warsaw in the afternoon/evening don't stop here.

Currently, around 1,500 people use Chynów station on the average weekday, more than double the 600-700 passengers using it before the modernisation. So the adage "built it, and they will come" is true. Will work to further improve the station environs boost passenger numbers? I hope so...

What more's needed here? A small shop and café. The footfall from passing trade would make this location an attractive one for a local entrepreneur. A restaurant, maybe? But above all, a bus service that meets the trains and connects with Grójec, 18km to the west, stopping at the villages along the way.

But there's a heritage note to all this. The Warsaw-Radom line that passes through Chynów, was built in 1934; though the original platform has gone when the line was modernised, the station building and outbuildings were from the time. The warehouse by the goods siding went long ago, the goods siding itself was lifted in 2020. So some snaps are in order to catalogue what is about to be demolished. The price of progress.

Tomorrow: the 2026 railway timetable, with a sleeper-train focus.

This time last year:
The November/December 2024 UAP flap

This time two years ago:
Impressions of Zielona Góra

This time three years ago:
Kraków to Jakubowizna in the snow

This time four years ago:
Frustration for the local wozidupek community

This time five years ago:
Small local milestones, Chynów station

This time six years ago:

Brexit: what next?
[Britain's economy is screwed – that's what]

This time nine years ago:
Kick out against change - or accept it?

This time ten years ago:
Warwick University alumni meet in Warsaw

This time 11 years ago:
Pluses and minuses of PKP InterCity

This time 12 years ago:
When transportation breaks down

This time 17 years ago:
Full moon closest to Earth

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