波鉄 (Hatetsu)

@smveerman Here: https://hrj.gov.pl/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/HRJ2_Schemat_polaczen_regionalnych.png (warning 30+ MB)

Backing up towards the center of the country for a bit, the previous iteration envisioned using the CMK (Central Trunk Line, the soon-to-be-signalled for 250 km/h line connecting Warsaw with Katowice and Kraków) as a dedicated high-speed line, with only one train every 4 hours stopping at the stations in Włoszczowa and Opoczno, a ghastly echo of the old "liberal" (in Karol Trammer's classification) vision where HSLs are for non-stop trains only and people in nearby towns can get screwed. This vision was walked back relatively quickly as the KO-led government promised the construction of a new station near Biała Rawska, having realized it would build up the area as a Warsaw commuter town really, really well. Now, projected non-stop trains from Warsaw to the southern metropolises have been reduced from 4 every hour (2 each way) to 3.5 per hour (2 towards Kraków, 1.5 towards Katowice) to leave room for an hourly stopping train to Warsaw, alternating between the two branches on the other end, and also using a newly prioritized connection from the CMK to "the new airport" (as the central point of the whole project is now called for some reason) for a direct connection there. In Warsaw, they would terminate at Main Station, the former post-war western terminus on Towarowa (Freight Street) pressed into service when works at West Station reduced through-running capacity a few years ago (not to be mistaken for Central Station!). Also added were a direct bihourly connection between Warsaw and Opole (replacing the cuurent serivce of some Pendolinos and EICs that go there as this is the fastest way to Wrocław until the Y gets built), or the aforementioned U41. It's a profile much closer to how it runs today, only faster, and that's respectful of its somewhat unusual character, I feel. It might not be a walk in the park to execute, but it should be worth it.

7/

#HRJ #kolej #rail

@smveerman *Only* about 10 years after Poland! Is the Poland to France good solutions adoption pipeline shortening a little, perhaps?

Would love to see the day there are regular Hrubieszów-Zamość-Bełżec-Hrebenne-Horyniec-Lubaczów-Jarosław trains, too, that part's ridiculous currently (as Jon can attest)

6/

#HRJ #kolej #rail

Podlachia is pretty much in line with what was already there, in reality or in plans, but the *south*-east saw a notable rearrangement with the main Lublin-Kraków connection being rerouted from the current Radom-Kielce route via Tarnobrzeg and the manufacturing town of Mielec (known for planes and, in public transport circles, passenger info systems), a significant improvement from the network building perspective. The new bihourly line P20 would continue through Katowice onto the Sudety trunk and reach Jelenia Góra, with every other train running a section from Hrubieszów Miasto via Zamość and Biłgoraj, the route of Mielec's only current long-distance connection, the Hetman, which the previous plans merely expanded into a 2h line. One pair would be routed to Wrocław, a relation apparently more important than many realize (all relations between the big cities of the south seem to be much more important than anyone in Warsaw realizes) based on the outcry after the Hetman, originally routed across the south and all the way to Zielona Góra via Żary, was unceremoniously shortened to Kraków, subjecting people from the region to much stress over whether they would make the change.

Other changes in Subcarpathia include line 54 Warsaw-Sandomierz-Rzeszów-Przemyśl being upgraded to Express category and carrying a section for Krosno and Sanok with every other train, and a brand-new line U41 that would connect Rzeszów with Łódź via Stalowa Wola, the currently freight-only line via Staszów to Kielce (that's going to need some serious work to bring back up to passenger-carrying standards, but I'm confident we can do a reasonable job of it quickly), and the CMK. Subcarpathia is not too keen on the latter, but it has the advantage of being electrified throughout, making it runnable, at least provisionally, with whatever old stock PKPIC has in store

5/

#HRJ #kolej #rail #Podkarpackie

I'll be following up with some spotlights on domestic changes I find particularly noteworthy over the coming days, in what is hopefully a more sustainable and interesting manner than how I handled ZSK. There's still a lot of material for me to digest around this

4/

The bigger change is in the west, where the Baltic Express would be increased to bi-hourly, bound to a line from Warsaw into an hourly Wrocław-Prague connection and rerouted via Wałbrzych-Mieroszów-Meziměstí-Náchod, removing long-distance traffic from Kłodzko-Międzylesie… Or would it? Problem is, according to documentation, this was agreed in October, before the Babiš government took over and scaled back railway investment, resulting in work on upgrading the Czech-side route with electrification and speed increases, including the Vysokov chord, necessary to finally stop routing everything between Náchod and Jaroměř with a double switchback, apparently getting punted off further into the future. According to a puzzled SkyscraperCity user, the whole thing is off until at least 2040 now. There's a disturbing parallel to the expressway through the nearby Lubawka crossing where the Czechs only got around to starting construction of their bit around the time Poland's was finished.

Finally, on the German border, most of the new is a significant increase in planned traffic through Frankfurt (Oder) with the retention of slots on the existing Berlin-Warszawa-Express route in addition to new trains running over the new Warsaw-Poznań HSL, as well as… the extension of every other RE1 from Frankfurt to Rzepin. It seems from the report that despite repeated requests to guarantee at least 1.5 slots per hour for trains to Poland between Berlin and Frankfurt, the Germans aren't actually making any promises in that regard. Harnessing the RE1 might be a good way around that, but it depends on a whole bunch of things, like VBB arranging for double-decker regional trains that can run between Germany and Poland, which almost certainly means a new type approval, or timetables being set up such that you don't have to then stew in Rzepin for half an hour to board the train actually going where you want to.

3/

#CrossBorderRail #HRJ #kolej #rail

I don't want this thread to become quite the slog the the ZSK one felt to me, so let's start with the bit non-Poles will likely find the most interesting - #CrossBorderRail changes (relative to previous announcements)!

On the Lithuanian border there's no change to long-distance plans - still a bihourly train from Kraków via Warsaw, Białystok, Ełk, Suwałki - but on the regional map it's shown that the planners apparently intend for Warmia-Masuria to front any possible restoration of regional traffic towards Kaunas, and it doesn't look like there were any objections so far. Let's hope they will have learned how to do trains properly by then (see https://mastodon.com.pl/@HaTetsu/116720881964644481).

Eastern Slovakia, I've already covered in news reposting. I'm not sure where they got the notion that Slovakia would run hourly trains across the border to Łupków but, well, it's up Subcarpathia to make it happen. The new map also has the promised 4h line to Budapest via Muszyna and Košice, although it looks like the plan is to eventually shorten those trains to Kraków and have people change to faster ones there, or else non-systematically link them to other lines. This would replace the present service via Břeclav entirely, although I imagine connections with changes to the Metropolitan ought to remain possible.

The map now includes stopping patterns in western Slovakia and Moravia - instead of throwaway "well, fast trains every 4h to Vienna and Budapest" lines, there's a whole hourly service to Vienna alternating between running the existing route via Otrokovice (those alternating between Wrocław and Kraków) and a to-be-straightened-out route via Brno (from Warsaw). Bratislava is expected to be handled by breaking away a couple of the latter trains, as well as previously proposed connections via Žilina - those are meant to be a panacea for capacity limits on the traditional Moravia route.

Another new possibility raised is the possible diversion of a few pairs running through Chałupki to Košice.

cc @jon

2/

#HRJ #kolej #rail

Polentakt hype intensifies

Two weeks after the reveal of the current government's long-term plan for railways (see #ZSKPolska for more on that one), last Monday saw the reveal of a new, more fleshed-out iteration of the Horyzontalny Rozkład Jazdy (Horizon Timetable), the short-term plan for an integrated passenger railway network to be achieved by 2035.

It brings major changes to integrate ideas developed since the last iteration of 2024, with a new set of lilac supplemental rychlík lines that seem to mostly correspond to the planned network of hybrid electric/Diesel (ESD162 and Gama 3.0) routes. It also marks the return of the Regional Express concept (which in the HRJ context means not the usual German kind, but rather regional HSR trains - more like BaWü's RE200) and, most importantly of all, the first nationwide regional rail plan, built in collaboration with all voivodeships. Of course, it's up to the latter how much of it actually gets implemented and the result does look a bit crayon-y (and the horizon is tentatively marked as 2030-2040). I think this is fine - this first attempt is clearly more intended to get an idea of goals, non-goals and what size of offer should be possible to provide.

…Which is sort of the main issue - they identified a whole bunch of bottlenecks that may require compromising on major parts of the plan (there's no way to redo *all* the urban nodes and poorly thought-out modernizations in 9 years) and designated them priority targets for in-depth studies using another addition to the Port Polska/CPK stable of modelling tools, the track-by-track, block-by-block Kolejowy Model Mikrosymulacyjny (Microsimulation Railway Model). It's also anyone's guess where the trains are going to come from for some of it.

(They also removed the "KDP" (HSR) line designations and merged them into Ex. Guess they realized it doesn't make that much sense to distinguish them while most of them run on souped-up conventional lines for large parts of their routes)

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#HRJ #kolej #rail

cc @cycling_on_rails ^ you might enjoy this one ;)

Moving back to HRJ, there is one detail I don't think was included in the report - the government is finally promising timetable normalcy! The number of timetable periods is to be decreased step-by-step until only two remain, starting in Decmeber and June. Already next year, there are supposed to be 4 timetable periods instead of the usual 5: https://www.rynek-kolejowy.pl/wiadomosci/horyzontalny-rozklad-jazdy-takt-przewidywalnosc-i-latwe-przesiadki-153477.html

#kolej #rail #PKP #PLK #bahnbubble #Fahrplan2027 #timetable #Timetable2027

Sticking with the Tricity, the last of the new Impuls 2 EMUs for SKMT should be underway soon - the company apparently took the unorthodox step of deploying drivers to pick them up from Nowy Sącz across the country… by bicycle: https://www.rynek-kolejowy.pl/wiadomosci/newag-wkrotce-odbior-ostatnich-impulsow-dla-pkp-skm-trojmiasto-153499.html

#SKMT #Trójmiasto #kolej #rail #Newag

PKP PLK signed a contract for the construction of a fourth track between Pszczółki and Pruszcz Gdański on the main line to Gdańsk. The section was tripled before but the demands of serving two major ports, a growing agglomeration and increasing amounts of summer traffic necessitated this investment: https://www.rynek-kolejowy.pl/wiadomosci/pkp-plk-z-umowa-na-czwarty-tor-od-pszczolek-do-pruszcza-gdanskiego--153451.html

#PKP #PLK #kolej #Pomorskie #Trójmiasto #rail

In international connections, aside of the government's… optimistic vision regarding future improvements on the Czech side (https://mastodon.com.pl/@HaTetsu/116862093542138478), the Baltic Express is doing well and Poland would like the Czechs to add a fifth early/late pair between Prague and Wrocław: https://www.rynek-kolejowy.pl/wiadomosci/baltic-express-sukcesem-frekwencyjnym-bedzie-kolejna-para-kursow--153461.html

#CrossBorderRail #PKPIC #ČD #PKP #kolej #rail

A slightly outdated news drop before I continue my thread…

Although the first new Pesa Gama 3 bi-mode locomotive is to be delivered to PKP Intercity this autumn, the type won't see revenue service in 2027 - PKPIC is intending to stick to its guns and take it through a series of test drives first, arguing that they cannot afford teething problems of an all-new construction causing disruption for passengers even if it means things fall behind schedule further: https://www.rynek-kolejowy.pl/wiadomosci/pkp-intercity-nie-planuje-nowych-gam-do-rozkladu-jazdy-na-2027-r-153430.html

#Pesa #kolej #PKP #PKPIC #rail

@grzgrz Tak, z polskimi bankami sytuacja jest generalnie lepsza niż z zachodnimi. Ogólnie z tego, co słyszę, wydaje mi się że oferta bankowa to jeden z bardziej niedocenianych aspektów życia w Polsce

@grzgrz To są kolory używane przez Dolnośląską Służbę Dróg i Kolei na zarządzanych przez siebie liniach

@millihertz That's gotta be because you have Verdana not verdana (or are font lookups supposed to be case-insensitive everywhere?)

A tak na marginesie, to nie jest ta czcionka z napisów na starych EN57 i podobnych? Jakoś tak znajomo wygląda

#HRJ #kolej