Hotel room with a railway view

Imagine staying in a hotel overlooking the platforms at Warszawa Centralna station - the continual racket of muffled announcements of train departures and delayed arrivals penetrating your room. Can't imagine it? The Grand Central Hotel, overlooking Glasgow Central station gives you just this experience.

I've stayed here before, back in the early 1980s, staying here for a conference. If not the same room, then one with the same general view. There is a charm associated with the place; one can imagine it during the era of steam trains.

Below: looking at the hotel rooms from the station concourse. My room is on the top row, second from left. The double glazing and thick roller blinds do little to cut out the sound of the station's loudspeakers.

Below: view from my room, looking down on to the concourse. One for the connoisseur - I for one can appreciate the ambience, but would prefer total sound-proofing. As I write, around half-past eight in the evening, the announcements are no longer constant as they were in the late afternoon, but even between 21:00 and 22:00 this evening, there will be 35 departures from this station.

Below: it's a very special station, architecturally. Look at the girders, and the wooden fronted shops. This is a Grade I listed building, as is the hotel (notable for the fact that the very first long-distance television signal was received here in 1927).

I hope I'll be able to get to sleep and have an undisturbed night.

Postscript, Wednesday morning: the station announcements begin at 07:00; until then, the station operates in silence.

Metro Centrum - closed for the summer

A short post for the record. For all of July and August, Metro Centrum is closed so that the second line of the Metro can be driven across the first line at Świętokrzyska. I've been avoiding the Metro this summer, only once did I have to get across town by public transport. I did this by taking the train to Metro Politechnika, then catching a tram up towards Żoliborz.

Above: STACJA ZAMKNIĘTA - 'station closed'. It's half past eleven, hardly any one around - this is the patelnia - 'frying-pan' - usually a very busy place.

At the same time, the suburban east-west railway line from W-wa Zachodnia to W-wa Wschodnia, is closed for refurbishment. All trains crossing Warsaw have to use the inter-city main line tracks; the result is chaos at rush-hour. W-wa Śródmieście serves only a handful of trains serving Okęcie airport.

Tip for travellers - the ticket office at W-wa Śródmieście is open and completely unused. Rather than try to buy your suburban train tickets at Centralna amidst massive queues, buy them at Śródmieście and walk across to the platforms at Centralna to board your train to Radom or Żyrardów or Dęblin.

Grodzisk Maz and its pretty station

Poland has some lovely examples of railway station architecture. Here is Grodzisk Mazowiecki station, along Line No. 1 (Warsaw-Katowice). Some 30km from W-wa Centralna, Grodzisk Maz. as a town exudes more wealth than other places a similar distance from Our City, wealth created recently on the influx of manufacturing plants and distribution centres.

The current building replaces the original station (opened in 1845), which was badly damaged during WW1. Built in the early 1920s, its architectural style is Polish Dworkowy, the dworek being the manor house beloved of the landed gentry. A style that made a come-back in the 1990s, but is now less in favour among architects and their clients. However, in this guise, it is a style most befitting a railway station serving an exurban community of 30,000 with strong transport links to the capital.

Below: the front elevation, seen from ul. 1 Maja. A balanced composition, pleasing to the eye. I like deep attics that have more than one floor; I wonder what's up there in the station attic? The steps leading up to the main entrance are wooden. Awaiting replacement, or simply wooden steps?

Below: the elevation facing the tracks. Note the 1930s shelters, similar to those that grace the platforms of the stations on the line running towards Otwock. And the metal-plated clock tower, and buttressed end wall. We can't see the typeface of the station name carved in stone above the main platform entrance; it is early 1920s and a gem of Polish typography.

Walking in from the street towards the platform, we pass though an airy vestibule (below), reminding me of Polish public buildings from the 1920s, such as Poznań's city hall. As I took this photo, a lady popped out from the buffet (to the left) and asked me to photograph the damp on the ceiling caused, she said, by water dripping down from the blocked-up gutters. Sadly, I had to explain that I was a mere amateur of railway architecture and not working for the local newspaper...

Below: the main ticket hall-cum-waiting room. Note lack of any electronic signage, and the (closed) booth selling PKS bus tickets. But compared to many Polish small towns of its size, I felt a certain confidence about the people in and around the station.

Certainly one of he nicer stations I've passed through; two half-hour long waits here proved Most rewarding. I feel some more Polish inter-war architecture should come to my readers' attention before too very long...

This time last year:
Exorcism by the President's Palace

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

This time three years ago:
Graffiti and street art

Gdynia Główna station after its remont

Although I had to be in Gdańsk this morning, I did not relish arriving there at 5am on the night train from Warsaw. My ticket was for Gdańsk, but I paid a small consideration to travel onto Gdynia, from where I'd return to Gdańsk in good time for the event I was moderating. This gave me 45 minutes extra sleep on the train, which was welcome.

At Gdynia, I found the station I'd last visited the previous summer fully reopened after its comprehensive remont. The post-war architecture has been sensitively restored to something approximating its original state, though with contemporary white-on-blue signage and raised floor guide-markings for the visually impaired.

Arrival at Gdynia Główna, just before six am. My night train is on the left.

One of the five restored mosaics; this one depicts the coastal economy.

Waiting room and ticket hall

Mosaic with the winged wheel symbol of PKP, Pegasus, and the Zodiac.

The station frontage: façade as seen from Gdynia's Pl. Konstytucji.

Mosaics from 1957 had been uncovered and the socialist-realist lamp fittings are working. And the crisp, cloudless morn, shortly before sunrise, offered the ideal conditions in which to admire the restored station.