Wolsztyn reclaims its unique position

Wolsztyn, Monday 15 May 2017. Film by Sendivogius Studios.

On 31 March 2014, steam locomotives shredded at Wolsztyn stopped hauling regular, timetabled passenger services between Wolsztyn and Poznan; the last location in Europe where such a service was being run on the standard gauge main-line. On 15 May 2017, the regular steam service resumed, albeit running between Wolsztyn and Leszno on weekdays and Wolsztyn and Poznan on Saturdays.

There are many heroes in the story how this came about, and one or two villains. However, a special mention is undoubtedly deserved by Wojtek Lis, the Mayor of Wolsztyn, and Andrzej Jabłoński, the Chief Executive of Parowozownia Wolsztyn; without their efforts this ambitious project would have come crashing to a halt. Congratulations gentlemen for a job well done.

 

Wolsztyn Shed – Wielkopolska Vote “Yes”

OL49-69 ready to depart with Woltur train, Wolsztyn. Photo William Wright.

(Click on images to see larger photos.)

Further to our report (BTWT, 1 July 2015) that representatives of all the parties (Wielkopolska Provincial Government, Wolsztyn District Council, Wolsztyn Town Council and PKP Cargo) had agreed in principle to proceed on the basis of a revised business plan, the council members of the various local authorities have been debating and voting on the proposals to set a new institute to run the shed. Each of the parties will be making a contribution to the setting up and operation of the shed (PKP Cargo – locomotives, rolling stock and facilities; others – start up capital and an ongoing financial contribution towards operating expenses) and participating in its strategic management.

Wolsztyn District Council (Starostwo Wolsztyńskie) have already voted in favour of the proposals and yesterday a critical milestone was passed when the Council of the Wielkopolska Provincial Government (Sejmik Wielkopolski) also passed a vote in favour. The Wielkopolska councillors’ vote was critical because the business plan envisages the provincial government being the principal funding source for the restoration and running of daily steam services.

The last council vote needed to secure the plan is that of the members of Wolsztyn Town Council, but with the town’s hospitality industry badly feeling the drop in tourism since the cessation of daily steam services, it is envisaged that Wolsztyn Mayor, Wojtek Lis, will have little difficulty in securing the support of the town’s councillors. The Town Council will consider the question during their meeting on August 3. If they vote in favour, the last piece of the jigsaw falls into place. There will be a formal signing ceremony sometime later, and December 1, 2016 is already pencilled in as the first day that the shed opens its doors under the auspices of its new owners.

The elephant in the room remains Poland’s railway infrastructure manager, PKP PLK. For reason best known to itself, PKP PLK insists on treating steam trains as if they were carrying out of gauge loads or nuclear waste. Whereas in other countries, steam trains are regarded as bringing useful publicity to the railway and their operators enjoy access to the railway network on the same (or even preferential) terms as those of other trains, in Poland PKP PLK demands a premium rate. As a result it is almost impossible to fill a steam train in Poland unless somebody – usually a local authority – picks up some of the bill.

With so many bodies pulling together to safeguard the future of Poland’s steam heritage at Wolsztyn would it not be appropriate for PKP PLK to also put a shoulder to the wheel?

Wolsztyn steam is alive…

 …passengers needed!

 

by William Wright

Poznan Market Square. Photo William Wright

(Click on images to see larger photos.)

Standard-gauge steam services running on selected days around Wolsztyn are very much alive! I tested a few services on Thursday and Friday May 21 and 22, 2015.

My short tour started in Poznan – a fine town with plenty to discover. I caught a local electric train to Zbaszynek in time to see the afternoon steam train from Wolsztyn arrive. A few days earlier a problem with a wheel bearing had required immediate repair, but thankfully all was now well with Ol49-69 that was to haul all the steam services.

The steam journey to Wolsztyn started with a non-stop stretch to Zbaszyn, on the Berlin to Warsaw mainline. From there, and on all the lines radiating from Wolsztyn, the scenery is a mixture of small villages and forest landscapes; look out for deer and old-fashioned horse and cart farming! Wolsztyn is a small town, with for many visitors its principle attraction being the engine shed and several steam locomotives in various states of repair, but with plenty of fine local attractions to discover also worth exploring in its own right. Accommodation can be found easily.

OL49-69 on arrival at Zbaszynek. Photo William Wright.

The following day, three return services covered part of the main routes out of Wolsztyn, to Nowa Wies Mochy, Rakoniewice and Stefanowo. Each service is mentioned clearly on the printed station departure board timetables. Tickets can be bought on the trains. The services ran perfectly to time, key railway staff were ready to signal departures, operate level-crossing gates and set signals. My visit not being a weekend, passenger numbers were very low, but this is still early days.

As reported in BTWT on 19 February 2015, the town of Wolsztyn, various other local authorities and the Wolsztyn Experience agreed to invest in a brand new tourist product – Woltur. This was set up by Patryk Szkopiec of IRPiK, the same organisation that runs Turkol, with the cooperation of PKP Cargo, responsible for the engine shed in Wolsztyn, and local train services operator, Przewozy Regionalne. Turkol continues to run longer-distance weekend steam specials.

Frozen in time, Tuchorza station and station master. Photo William Wright.

The overall impression is a perfectly run service authentically reproducing a sample of timetabled standard-gauge steam services. My recommendation? Go now whilst the services still exist! For those interested in a more hands-on experience see the Wolsztyn Experience website.

 

Wolsztyn Institute Plan gets green light

A ray of sunlight in Wolsztyn Shed. Photo Jo’ny.

A major milestone in the plan to set up a cultural institute to manage Wolsztyn Depot (see BTWT, 8 May 2014) was achieved yesterday, when at a meeting at the office of the Chief Executive (Urząd Marszałkowski) a new business plan was agreed to by all the parties concerned.

Negotiations had been stalled for some time because of the size of the on-going financial support being asked of the local authorities. Relations between PKP Cargo and the local authorities had reached an all time low and PKP Cargo had threatened to pull the plug on this year’s Steam Parade,  if the local authorities did not sign up to the business plan.

With just the basics necessary for light maintenance, Wolsztyn lacks the engineering resources necessary for heavy maintenance. Photo Jo’ny.

A new ‘can do’ attitude seems to have infected all the parties since the visit to Wolsztyn of Britain’s Ambassador to Poland, Robin Barnett (see BTWT, 18 March 2015). Not only was it announced that the Steam Parade (see BTWT, 5 May, 2015) was going ahead, but shortly afterwards PKP Cargo agreed to prepare a new business plan which would take into account the concerns of the local authorities.

Steam specials could be a useful income stream, but track access charges for steam trains are punitive. Photo Jo’ny.

(All photos can be enlarged by clicking on the images.)

During the last few months the business plan has been the subject of intense discussion with the local authorities and PKP Cargo has given a ‘hair cut’ to the financial support expected from the local authorities by cutting the rental payments expected from the new institute.

At yesterday’s meeting representatives of all the parties to the negotiations – Wojciech Jankowiak, the deputy Chief Executive of Wielkopolska Province; Janusz Frąckowiak, the Chief Executive of Wolsztyn District; Wojciech Lis, the Mayor of Wolsztyn; and Andrzej Jabłoński of PKP Cargo agreed to proceed on the basis of PKP Cargo’s revised plan.

Our congratulations to all concerned. It is always invidious to pick out any individuals, but perhaps it would not be out of order to mention the mayor of Wolsztyn, Wojtek Lis (who has been doing a great deal of work behind the scenes), and Andrzej Jabłoński, who has been managing the project on behalf of PKP’s Cargo.

Although not in steam at this year’s Steam Parade pacific Piękna Helena had been cleaned by a couple of volunteers. Photo Jo’ny.

Now it only remains for the council members of the three local authorities – Wielkopolska Province, Wolsztyn District, and Wolsztyn Town – to vote on the proposals, and for the agreement to be signed in a blaze of publicity when everybody gets back from their summer holidays.

Friday, January 1 2016, is the target date for the new institute to take over responsibility for the shed, and Saturday 30 April has been tentatively pencilled in as the date of the next Wolsztyn steam parade. Watch this space!

Metro blues

The Hot Sardines – Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen.
Video TheHotSardinesVEVO.

Perhaps ZTM Warszawa could ask the Hot Sardines to help jazz up the Warsaw Metro?

(With BTWT’s thanks to Piotr Kumelowski for the hot tip!)

More:

• Benny Goodman Sextet (1937) – Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen

Narrow Gauge revival

Pleszew railcar in December 2011. Photo Ed Beale.

The beginning of May in Poland is memorable not just for the annual Wolsztyn Parade of Steam locomotives, but for the start of tourist services on Poland’s preserved narrow gauge railways. Most lines run trains just over the weekend, sometimes only a couple of return trips on Sundays.

To the best of our knowledge (please tell us if you know of others!) only three lines operate daily services during the operating season: the Nadmorska Kolej Wąskotorowa, aka the Gryfice Narrow Gauge Railway; the Znin Narrow Gauge Railway; and the Bieszczady Forest Railway. The Bieszczady weekday service runs only in July and August, while the Gryfice and Znin lines run daily from May through to September.

Pleszew Railway timetable 4 May until 13 June 2015.

(Click image to enlarge.)

Notes

(B) runs Mondays to Fridays & Sundays (except 4.6.2015)
(D) runs Mondays to Fridays except bank holidays
(E) runs Mondays to Saturdays except bank holidays
(6) runs on Saturdays
(7) runs on Sundays (except 4.6.2015)

All of us a BTWT were surprised and delighted to be told by SKPL that they have brought back daily ordinary passenger services (not tourist services!) on the Pleszew narrow gauge railway, and that funding is in place for the services to run to the end of 2015.

The Pleszew n.g. line is a mixed gauge line – standard gauge and narrow gauge trains share one rail. It is a 3 km fragment of the erstwhile Krotoszyn Narrow Gauge Railway which at its height was nearly 50 km long. The last train ran from Krotoszyn to Pleszew Miasto on 12 January 1986. The line was taken over by the Pleszew Town Council who licensed it to SKPL in 2006. SKPL operate freight trains over the standard gauge tracks from the interchange with the main line to an oil depot in Pleszew.

In February 2013, BTWT reported that passenger services using a diesel railcar operating over the n.g. tracks had been suspended. We are delighted to report that as from 4 May 2015 Poland’s last surviving n.g. regular passenger service is again operational.

Old president’s campaign derails

Duda elected president of Poland

Andrzej Duda in April 2013. Photo Piotr Drabik, (CC by 2.0).

All over Poland people got up, switched on their TV sets or radios, and over their morning cups of coffee heard that they had elected the opposition candidate, Andrzej Duda, to be president of Poland. Almost until the last moment, pollsters were predicting a victory for the incumbent, Bronisław Komorowki. But it was not to be. When the election news blackout was lifted at 22:30 exit polls indicated that the newcomer had secured a decisive 6% lead. Shortly before midnight Komorowski conceded defeat.

It had been an election largely fought on negative point scoring. Opponents of President Komorowski, accused him and the governing party, Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska) of employing communist-era officials in key government positions, turning a blind eye to fraud and corruption in high places, and preferring to ignore the problems of ordinary people. Opponents of Duda, ridiculed his membership of the Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) party which is portrayed by the mainstream media, as a bunch of religious bigots obsessed with the circumstances of the Smolensk aeroplane crash which killed President Lech Kaczyński.

The danger in conducting negative campaigns is that while two candidates tear each other apart, a third can emerge quietly from the wings…  . And so it was that ageing rock musician, Paweł Kukiz, emerged as the surprise youth candidate and garnered over 20% of the vote in the first round of the elections. While Kukiz took no part in the second round, he and his supporters are already gearing up for the parliamentary elections due in October. It seems likely that neither Law and Justice, nor Civic Platform will gain an overall majority in the parliamentary elections and that there will be a coalition government.

Andrzej Duda, born 16 May 1972, is a lawyer and a Member of the European Parliament. He comes from Krakow, the son of Janina Milewska and Jan Tadeusz Duda. His wife, Agata Kornhauser, is a high school German teacher. His father-in-law is Julian Kornhauser, a well-known Polish-Jewish writer, translator and literary critic.

He began his political career with the now-defunct Freedom Union Party (Unia Wolnóści) in the early 2000s, but after the parliamentary elections in 2005, began his collaboration with the Law and Justice Party. In 2010, he was an unsuccessful candidate in the elections for the Mayor of Kraków, but was more successful in the 2011 parliamentary election, where he received 79,981 votes for the Kraków area, becoming a member of the Polish Parliament’s lower house, the Sejm. He did not complete his term, becoming elected in 2014 as a member of the European Parliament.

He was the official candidate of the Law and Justice party for the office of President of Poland in the 2015 Polish presidential elections. He won the election with 52% of the vote. He is President-elect of Poland and will take up the office of President on 6 August 2015.

Great Central Railway wins £10m award

Bridge to the Future update June 2014. The project to bridge the gap between the two preserved sections of the GCR has now (April 2015) raised £860,000. Video GCRofficial.

Sir Peter Luff, the new chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fund, has announced support worth £98 million for nine projects to preserve Britain’s rich scientific and technological history.

The world’s largest medical collection in London’s Science Museum, one of the earliest factories at Derby Silk Mill, and Cheshire’s ground-breaking Jodrell Bank centre for astronomy are among the sites receiving a share of the money from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Millions of pounds are set to help digitise the British Library’s UK sound collection, while the Great Central Railway, a double-track operational heritage railway between Loughborough and Leicester, will receive funding of £9,999,400 for its Main Line Bridging the Nation project to create a new heritage railway museum in Leicester.

GCR Winter Steam Gala 30 January to 1 February 2015. Video Steaming Around The Midlands.

The new museum will provide secure and weatherproof accommodation for some of the UK’s most iconic locomotives and rolling stock that work or are stored on the GCR, as well as artefacts such as posters, badges and the Newton Photographic Collection.  Uniquely, the operational heritage railway will be an integral part of the museum, enabling visitors to make the connection between exhibits and a real piece of living heritage.

The project will build on an already thriving apprenticeship scheme and involve new volunteers.  There will be a complementary outreach programme which includes plans to make contact with the local Asian community which has strong links to the railway.

Off topic. On message.

Dyspozytor takes a trip down memory lane to his school days and reflects on the UK elections.

A treasure trove of transport history. The River Thames (bottom right) has been a transport route since before the Romans invaded Britain. The Roman road from London to Bath (left bottom to mid right) was by-passed by the Great West Road which itself was superseded by the M4 motorway. The canalised River Brent  (top left to bottom right) was opened in 1798 as part of the Grand Junction Canal. The area comprising both banks of the canal to the north of Brentford Locks was the canal company’s Brentford Dock. The last commercial traffic on this section of the canal ceased around 1980.

The London & South Western Railway’s line from Barnes to Hounslow (lower left to upper right) opened in 1849 and is still open for passenger services. The Great Western Railway’s Brentford Branch, opened in 1859, was the last commission of Brunel, the GWR’s chief engineer. The whole triangular built up area to the south of Thames Locks was the GWR’s Brentford Dock. The Dock closed in December 1964.

The Great West Road (mid left to top right) from Hounslow to Kew was opened around 1930. The remaining section from Kew in Middlesex to the Cromwell Road in London completed in the 1950s. The eastern section of the M4 motorway (top left to top right) from Slough to the Chiswick flyover was opened in 1965. The white oblong on the right is the Griffin Park ground of Brentford Football Club.

Satellite view courtesy Google Maps. Click the image to open an interactive map of this area on Google Maps.

Today, Parliamentary elections are being held in the United Kingdom. What have football and party politics got in common? Both are capable of generating enormous levels of passion, both – in spite of the media hype – seem to leave a large portion of the population stone cold. I first noted the similarities between the two as a schoolboy.

Let us start at the beginning. In the early 1960s, whenever I could get away from school, much of my time was spent on the Grand Union (formerly Grand Junction) canal at Brentford where – having made friends with the lock-keeper at Lock 99 – I became his unofficial deputy. I had discovered the canal, the lock and my friendly lock keeper while on a cycle ride to explore the ex Great Western Railway Brentford branch line.

Almost the entire section of the Brentford branch line that lies to the north-east of the Great West Road is visible in this photograph. It shows the area as it was in 1953. The Imperial Biscuit Works is the factory on the extreme left – it had its own siding as did Firestone Rubber Tyre factory in the foreground. This building with its iconic Art Deco frontage was demolished during the August 1980 bank holiday weekend before it could be listed.

Lock 99 of the Grand Union Canal is visible on the extreme right and Brentford Town Goods Depot is in the middle distance. Those with a keen eye will spot the Great Western main line and Wharncliffe Viaduct which carries the line over the River Brent valley. Photo ©Historic England.

(Click the image to see the original on the Historic England website and for details regarding reuse.)

At 07:00 each morning during the holidays, I would help to lock through 6 or 7 lighters (unpowered barges) that had been waiting below Lock 99 while their two-man crews (tractor driver and steerer) had breakfast at the café serving the Firestone Tyre factory.

Already the narrow boat pairs (motor boat and unpowered butty) heading for Birmingham had left the British Waterways Brentford Dock and locked through Lock 99, before the lock-keeper had come on duty. They were in a hurry to clear the 6 lock Hanwell Flight before the lighters began to move.

On Friday afternoons I was allowed to leave school early and as often as no cycling along the canal in the late afternoon, I would see a pannier tank haul a train of coal wagons along the branch where it ran parallel to the canal.

And so at an early age my life became linked with two transport routes that were on the way out: the railway to Brentford Docks and the Grand Union Canal. Meanwhile the M4 motorway was being cut through one of the lakes of Osterley Park and taken over Boston Manor Park on an ugly steel viaduct.

My lock keeper friend took me to see the run down Brentford Docks just before they closed in December 1964. The tractor-hauled lighters carried their loads up to Hanwell and Southall until the closure of London Docks. Long distance narrowboat carrying along the Grand Union continued on a small until the closure of Blisworth Tunnel for major engineering work in 1980.

It was easy to see even at my tender age that a tiny tractor pulling a barge loaded with 80 tons of cargo, or a pair of narrow boats carrying 50 tons between them with the motor boat powered by a single cylinder Bolinger engine, or an ex GWR 0-6-0PT 57xx class loco pulling 25 coal wagons, were all burning much less fossil fuel than if the same loads were being carried by heavy lorries. Likewise it did not require a Philosophy, Politics and Economics degree from Oxford to see connect the dots when a Minister of Transport called Ernest Marples was promoting a switch from rail to road while his wife’s company, Marples Ridgeway, was building motorways.

The Great West Road, looking from Osterley towards the Brentford Dock branch line in 1931. The Imperial Biscuit Works is the first factory on the left and Firestone Rubber Tyre factory is far distance. Photo ©Historic England.

(Click on the image to see it on the Historic England website and for details of re-use.)

During the 1960s, a great deal of effort was expended explaining to the general public that railways make a loss and road transport is ‘more economic’ to justify the wholesale destruction of Britain’s railways. A great deal less was said then, and has been said since, about the way that this economic argument is slanted against railways which in the UK, as in Poland, are expected to bear their capital and maintenance costs – a charge which is not made on the balance sheet of road transport. If the environmental and health costs of unbridled road expansion are taken into account the case for investing in railways becomes even stranger.

Ever wondered why in countries such as Austria and Switzerland which do put their roads and railways on the same financial footing it still ‘pays’ to transport rail freight by the wagonload and also carry it over their extensive networks of narrow gauge railways.

In 1993, Britain’s railways were broken up into over 90 companies and privatised. Poland’s railways are undergoing a similar process and the privatisation of PKP Energytyka – responsible for supplying the traction current – and PKP Informatyka – responsible for PKP’s computer services – is being rushed through with indecent haste.

Not surprisingly the ‘reform’ pushed up costs and made long-distance ‘walk-on’ fares too expensive for ordinary people who switched coach services. Since those days the major political parties have produced a great deal of hot air – usually while in opposition – about making railway services more affordable for passengers and switching freight from road to rail. These promises are quickly forgotten as soon as the opposition party is elected to government.

Which brings me back to the football analogy at the start of today’s post. While the fans roar their support for one or other side, the real action is taking place off the pitch. Who will invest in the club? Which players should be bought? What will the sponsor want for his money?

As it is with football so it is with mainstream politics. If you share my concern for the destruction wrought by the UK’s pro road transport policy and have still not cast your vote, why not fire a shot across the bows of the mainstream political parties and cast a vote for the Green Party?

The site of Brentford GWR station in 1961. Note the overhead wires for providing the traction current for trolleybuses. The footbridge to the British Waterways office at Lock 100 can just be discerned under the railway bridge, Photo ©Ben Brooksbank.

(Click on image for details of licensing.)

More:

• Disused Stations – Brentford Dock
• englishrail blog – A chance to make a difference

Wither Wolsztyn?

Wolsztyn’s 22nd annual steam locomotive parade had just three working locos!

This Chabówka driver in charge of 0-6-0T Tkh49-1 was not the only person trying to figure out what was going on. Photo Marta Goltz.

The non-working ‘awaiting overhaul’ engines were left in the shed, making photography difficult. Photo Jan Borzuchowski.

The joy of Wolsztyn. Hands up who remembers when UK shed open days were like this? Photo Marta Goltz.

Shy film star. Curiously, a tent blocked off the possibility of a proper ‘head-on’ photo of Ok1-359. The loco has appeared in many films including Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning “The Pianist”. Photo Jan Borzuchowski.

While members of the public were permitted to explore nearly all the engines, Ok1-359 was awarded star treatment ond its footplate was a strictly ‘no-go’ area. Photo Jan Borzuchowski.

Given a properly dried out boiler and generous doses of oil a steam loco will last forever. Ok1-359 was built by BMAG in 1917, and was last steamed in 2009. Photo Jan Borzuchowski.

Good practice – a pragmatic attitude to health and safety, with the running lines securely protected. Poor practice – Ty1-76 like many other historic steam locomotives is kept out in the open all the year round. Photo Jan Borzuchowski.

Thousands have come to see the engines, but only three locos appear at the parade: Wolsztyn only ‘in-ticket’ loco Ol49-69, and Chabówka’s 2-10-2T Okz32-2 and 0-6-oT Tkh49-1.

What does the future bode for Wolsztyn – a clear road ahead or storm clouds gathering? Photo Jan Borzuchowski.

Many thanks to BTWT’s guest photographers. Jan Borzuchowski and Marta Goltz. Also special thanks to all our friends in PKP Cargo without whose assistance this report would have been impossible.

To be continued/…

More:

• Głos Wielkopolski – 18 photos of the parade
• parowozy.com.pl – 10 photos of the parade

 

 

Invisible destinations, invisible trains…

The 1922 rebuilding of Waterloo Station in London by the London & South Western Railway Company brought order and purpose into what had been a rambling and confusing building. From a Southern Railway poster published shortly before the nationalisation of Britain’s railways.

Travelling by train used to be an adventure.

We got to Waterloo at eleven, and asked where the eleven-five started from.  Of course nobody knew; nobody at Waterloo ever does know where a train is going to start from, or where a train when it does start is going to, or anything about it.  The porter who took our things thought it would go from number two platform, while another porter, with whom he discussed the question, had heard a rumour that it would go from number one.  The station-master, on the other hand, was convinced it would start from the local.

To put an end to the matter, we went upstairs, and asked the traffic superintendent, and he told us that he had just met a man, who said he had seen it at number three platform.  We went to number three platform, but the authorities there said that they rather thought that train was the Southampton express, or else the Windsor loop.  But they were sure it wasn’t the Kingston train, though why they were sure it wasn’t they couldn’t say.

PKP IC TLK train at Lodz Kaliska. But is it my train? Photo BTWT.

Then our porter said he thought that must be it on the high-level platform; said he thought he knew the train.  So we went to the high-level platform, and saw the engine-driver, and asked him if he was going to Kingston.  He said he couldn’t say for certain of course, but that he rather thought he was.  Anyhow, if he wasn’t the 11.5 for Kingston, he said he was pretty confident he was the 9.32 for Virginia Water, or the 10 a.m. express for the Isle of Wight, or somewhere in that direction, and we should all know when we got there.  We slipped half-a-crown into his hand, and begged him to be the 11.5 for Kingston.

“Nobody will ever know, on this line,” we said, “what you are, or where you’re going.  You know the way, you slip off quietly and go to Kingston.”

“Well, I don’t know, gents,” replied the noble fellow, “but I suppose some train’s got to go to Kingston; and I’ll do it.  Gimme the half-crown.”

Thus we got to Kingston by the London and South-Western Railway.

We learnt, afterwards, that the train we had come by was really the Exeter mail, and that they had spent hours at Waterloo, looking for it, and nobody knew what had become of it.

From Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K Jerome, 1889.

Changing the printed timetable is a major exercise. Photo BTWT.

Travelling by train in Poland is still an adventure. Surprisingly there is a dearth of information at the point of departure. Printed timetables do not always have details of all intermediate stations and quickly become out of date. The information on main and auxiliary indicator boards is often incomplete. The on-line timetable is probably the safest bet. But, not always.

Auxiliary departure board at Warszawa Centralna in 2013. There was no indication that the 15:49 and 16:16 to Lodz Kaliska also stopped at Lodz Widzew and Lodz Chojny. Photo BTWT.

(Click to expand to see details.)

A couple of years ago the Zuławy Railway – a preserved fragment of the once extensive narrow gauge  railway network serving the coastal region near Gdańsk – arranged with Arriva to run a number of trains to connect with its tourist trains. Arriva arranged the train paths with infrastructure manager, PKP PLK, and PLK passed on the details to PKP subsidiary, TK Telekom, and the new trains duly appeared in the national railway timetable.

All went well, until PLK, decided to change the times of the paths that it was making available for the new services. Arriva changed the times of its trains, but TK Telekom, which was not contracted to make an intermediate timetable correction, did not change its timetable. During the Zuławy Railway operating season, intending passengers turned up to catch the Arriva trains only to find out that their trains had already gone.

Fragment of TLK Telekom page showing the rogue results of a query for a service from Krakow Glowny to Warszawa Centralna on 19 April 2015.

In spite of such gremlins, many still consider TK Telekom to be the definitive source of timetable information. The company hosts two timetable query pages: its original service, old.rozklad-pkp.pl, and a newer service, rozklad-pkp.pl. The former is rather old-fashioned, but provides much useful information, including real time tracking, about selected trains. The latter is much easier to use on a mobile phone, but is much less informative.

So when one of BTWT’s regular readers was researching a trip to Krakow in a couple of weeks time it was entirely appropriate that he started by looking up the time of trains on the original TK Telekom website. He had intended to fly in via Katowice on Thursday evening, 16 April and to go back via Warsaw on the Sunday 19 April. Much to his surprise he found (see screen grab above) that there were no suitable connections.

There was a 08:42 TLK train which was timetabled to do the Warsaw journey (via Katowice, Czestochowa and Piotrkow Trybunalski) in 9 hours and 1 minute! The next direct service (and the only one to do the journey in a reasonable time) was the 15:08 EIP.

Accordingly, he decided to forgo his planned trip to Warsaw and afternoon flight back to Heathrow, and to fly out on Sunday morning direct from Krakow. Having booked his plane ticket, he was playing around with PKP IC’s own ticketing portal. Imagine his chagrin when he discovered several additional Sunday services from Krakow to Warsaw that suddenly appeared which had not shown up when he queried the TK Telekom timetable. (See below.)

PKP IC e-ticketing system showing additional morning trains from Krakow Glowny to Warszawa Centralna on 19 April.

In fact, there is a very good service from Krakow to Warsaw on Sunday mornings. Services include the 10:06 EIP (journey time 2 hours 26 minutes), the 10:44 TLK (2hrs. 51 min.) and the 12:07 EIC (2hrs. 27 min.).

So is the PKP IC portal better than TK Telekom’s? Well not necessarily. I have seen the PKP IC service display ‘ghost trains’ which do not actually run on the day queried. A more frequent problem is when the system refuses to show the price of available tickets, or to process a ticket sale.

PKP IC e-ticketing system unable to provide ticket prices for the 17:35 EIP, the 18:35 EIP and the 19:15 TLK trains from Warszawa Centralna to Krakow Glowny at 08:26 on 24 Febuary.

PKP IC e-ticketing system unable to complete a ticket purchase for the 11:35 EIP from Warszawa Centralna to Krakow Glowny at 08:26 on 24 Febuary.

(Click to expand.)

With a fierce warning on the bottom of the page that anyone caught on a Pendolino train without a ticket will be fined 650PLN (118 GBP), the PKP IC ticketing system does not leave the would be Pendolino traveller with a warm fuzzy feeling. Maybe the marketing team at PKP IC could learn a thing or two from the bright young chaps at PolskiBus?

Screen capture showing a part of the PolskiBus home page.

PKP InterCity – strategy masterstroke!

Where the new strategy was developed – PKP IC HQ in ul. Zelażna, Warsaw. Photo By Adrian Grycuk (CC BY-SA 3.0 pl), via Wikimedia Commons.

How to make PKP IC profitable? That was the question that new PKP IC boss, Jacek Leonkiewicz, set his best brains to solve. The challenge is formidable, at the top end of the market – served by the EIC and EICP (Pendolino) services – the carrier is facing stiff competition from the domestic airlines and the private motor car. In the lower end of the market – served by the TLK services – the train operating company is losing passengers as a result of the bargain basement tactics of PolskiBus and its me too imitators.

With the company stuck between a rock and a hard place, the solution dreamt up by the best brains in PKP IC is stunning. Not for them the complexities of BTWT’s own 10-point reform plan. No, the PKP IC solution stands out in its brilliance and simplicity: in the timetable changes, to be introduced towards the end of 2015, journey times for TLK trains will be extended!

But, dear reader, I can hear you protest, won’t even more TLK passengers desert as a result? Precisely! When it can shown that the TLK sector is a declining business, more trains can be withdrawn, or the sector can be closed down completely. With less expensive trains to run – PKP IC’s finances will improve dramatically!

A big hat tip to Rynek Kolejowy for today’s story.

Postcard from Guatemala by Piotr Kumelowski

At first sight, Guatemala and Poland have little in common, yet both both countries have travelled a difficult and painful path to achieve national sovereignty and democracy. In both, trains are associated in mind of the public with a period it would rather forget, and the the road lobby has made the most of this to deal a heavy blow to their railways. Sadly in the case of Guatamala, the damage seems to have been fatal. Piotr Kumelowski reports from his trip to Guatemala in February 2015. [Dyspozytor]

 

The author posing by IRCA 204, 2-8-2 built as 74134 by Baldwin in 11/1948. Photo Piotr Kumelowski collection.

Despite its obvious advantages, rail has lost the battle with road in yet another country – Guatemala. Before we shrug our shoulders and dismiss this Central American country as a ‘typical banana republic’ – it is worth becoming acquainted with some interesting facts. The origins of the local railways date back to the last two decades of the nineteenth century. One of the companies served the extensive coffee plantations run by German settlers. At the beginning of the twentieth century, several independent concerns were consolidated as the state-owned Ferrocarriles de Guatemala, whose 3-foot (914 mm) gauge lines reached both oceans as well as the Mexican and Salvadoran borders, a network of some 800 km.

The railways of Guatemala. Map Bill Metzger/RDC.

The zenith of the Guatemalan railways occurred in the period 1912 – 1954, when the lines found themselves in the hands of the United Fruit Company – a giant citrus producer. Under the name of ‘International Railways of Central America’ (IRCA) – the infrastructure, rolling stock, procedures and frequency of trains reached a North American standard. The railways transported tropical fruits for export, serviced virtually the all imports, ran regular passenger services (providing hotels and restaurants) and carried the mail. They were a real link with the outside world and a herald of technical progress.

In 1954, as a result of antitrust legislation in the United States, the United Fruit Company got rid of its railways which were acquired by government.  That date also marks the start of an extensive programme of road construction. In 1996, the whole railway – known as FEGUA – was definitively closed. But was not the end. Like the fairy godmother in Cinderella, the Railway Development Corporation, a USA ‘short line’ operator, appears on the scene and achieves a miracle. After negotiating a concession to operate the railway from  the government, the company overcame numerous technical difficulties to restore to life a devastated, but most commercially promising, 320 km segment of the network from the Atlantic to the capital of Puerto Barrios (4 million inhabitants).

Ferrocarriles de Guatemala (FEGUA y Ferrovias). Video Saúl Lima Díaz

Alarmed, the road haulage lobby used a whole series of dirty tricks to make life as difficult as possible for the ‘Yankees’ and to get rid of a competitor. By 2007, they had achieved their objectives, and the recently revived rail transport of steel, cement, paper, oil, bananas and containers died. Today, all that is left is a haunted rusting fleet of rolling stock and locomotives, while track and steel civil engineering structures are stolen more and more brazenly and the highways become ever more jammed with huge used trucks imported from the USA. Something of interest remains – the Museo del Ferrocarril in the capital. Ironically it was partially set up by the Americans.

Sin Nombre viaduct at mile post 177.78. Photo courtesy Jorge Senn/Railroad Heritage.

 

More:

• Wikipedia – Guatemala
• Friends of Latin American Railways – Guatemala’s last Railway
• Railroad Development Corporation – Ferrovías Guatemala
• Museo del Ferrocarril

 

British Ambassador drives Ol49-69!

Left to right: British Ambassador, Robin Barnett; Shed Manager, Mariusz Kokornaczyk; and Mayor of Wolsztyn, Wojtek Lis. Photo BTWT.

The mood is sombre in Wolsztyn these days: the regular pair of scheduled steam passenger workings has been suspended for a whole year; only one locomotive, Ol49-69, is in ticket; Leszno depot is due to close and its engineering facilities will be lost; idle drivers sit around grumbling, and contemplate early retirement.

The negotiations between the main decision-makers seem to have ground to a halt. While a breath of optimism was injected into the negotiations when it was announced that the plan to form a commercial company to run the depot was being superseded by a project to set up a cultural institute (BTWT 8 May 2014) instead, the reality is that the various local authorities just do not have the financial resources to pay the annual subsidies that the PKP Cargo business plan envisages.

An ugly game of  one-upmanship seems to be being played out. The original suspension of steam services last March took place when the Chief Executive of Wielkopolska provincial government felt that PKP Cargo were dragging out the negotiations, since then a majority of PKP Cargo shares has been sold and Cargo is effectively a private company. Responsibility for maintaining Poland’s steam heritage sits uncomfortably alongside the company’s commercial aspirations.

Now it is PKP Cargo that is keen to speed up negotiations – a fortnight ago the Mayor’s office was informed that unless the local authorities signed up to the business plan there would be no Parada Parowozow (Wolsztyn’s annual parade of steam locomotives) this year.

At a few minutes past 10:00 on Tuesday 17 March, Robin Barnett, CMG, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Poland, swept into this forbidding environment like a breath of fresh air. His enthusiasm was infectious and provided a much-needed morale boost to all those who accompanied him around the shed. The British Ambassador came to Wolsztyn at the invitation of Wojtek Lis, the Mayor of Wolsztyn, and a passionate enthusiast of steam locomotives since his student days.

Robin Barnett says a few words for the benefit of the press.
Photo BTWT.

Though the Ambassador spoke in Polish, thanks to the help of the British Embassy, we managed to obtain a copy of his speech in English.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would just like to say a few words to thank those people who worked so hard to make my visit to Wolsztyn and its historic locomotive depot possible. I have always been a fan of steam trains. When I was in Poland under communism one of my hobbies was to travel to the south of Poland to ride on PKP steam trains and taking illegal photos. I even took the train that passed through the USSR without requiring
a visa. So I would like to say a special thank you to the Mayor of Wolsztyn, Mr Wojtek Lis for inviting me to Wolsztyn and letting me revisit the sights and smells of my first time in Poland.

I would also like to thank Mr Mariusz Kokornaczyk, the shed master for putting one of his historic locomotives in steam and answering all my questions. I need to learn more specialised vocabulary po polsku!

I would also like to congratulate the PKP group and more specifically, PKP Cargo, the custodians of Wolsztyn locomotive depot, for recognising the unique heritage value of the depot and its locomotives and for preserving the complex as a going concern for the benefit of future generations.

I have been told that talks are in progress between PKP Cargo, the Marszałek’s office, the Starosta and your Burmistrz regarding setting up a new entity to secure the long-term future of the shed. I very much hope that these negotiations will soon reach a successful conclusion. The Wolsztyn depot, its engines and its trains, are not only a wonderful Polish asset with huge potential to attract tourists – they are also important in the European context.

Finally, while today is all about railway heritage, I would like to say a few words about the future of railways. The future is all about integrated transport systems. Roads will always play a vital role but they are increasingly full in many places and have environmental implications. So rail is an essential ingredient of any successful transport strategy. Freight trains, commuter trains, light rail and PKPs impressive new Pendolino will all be crucial for Poland’s future economic growth.

Today Britain’s railways transport more passengers than at any time since the Second World War. We are well on the way to completing Crossrail – Europe’s biggest urban infrastructure project, a 15 billion pound project to improve commuter services by constructing a new railway under London. We are also about to embark on HS2, a 43 billion pound project to build a new high-speed railway from the London to the north.

Helped by almost 8 billion of EU funding between now and 2020, I am certain that Poland’s railways will also experience a great renaissance, which will give me great pleasure. I have to admit though that, much though I have enjoyed using Pendolino, for me, my heart will always be with steam.

Robin Barnett about to have his driving lesson. Photo BTWT.

The highlight of the Ambassador’s visit to the locomotive depot was when, armed with a PKP Cargo footplate pass, he mounted the footplate of Ol49-69 and, after having had the controls explained to him by Howard Jones of the Wolsztyn Experience, he then – under the eagle eye of one of the Ol49’s regular drivers – gradually opened the regulator and took the loco for a spin down the loco yard.

With Robin Barnett at the controls Ol49-69 accelerates down the depot yard. Photo BTWT.

Polish TV’s TeleExpress crew were there to record every detail of the trip and a splendid piece went out that day on Poland’s main TV channel giving the shed – and everybody’s hopes for the return of daily steam workings – a terrific plug. Even PKP Cargo got into the mood and their Press spokesman, Mirosław Kuk, announced that the twenty-second annual Steam Locomotive Parade in Wolsztyn WILL take place this year on May 2!

 Ambassador triumphant! Photo BTWT.

More:

• Wolsztyn Town Hall – photo gallery
• TeleExpress – Ambasador Maszynista
• Teleexpress Extra – includes longer version of the video clip

Poland – worst international rail connections in Central Europe

International rail connections between the capitals of Central Europe. Graphic courtesy Centre for Sustainable Transport (CZT).

(Click image to access source material – in Polish – on CTZ website.)

Notwithstanding various European Commission initiatives to create a ‘connected Europe’, and to encourage a modal shift to rail, Poland’s international rail connections are pretty dire. Now the ‘Man in Seat 61‘ reports how international connections from Wroclaw Glowny have been slashed.

 

Should Wroclaw be stripped of its 2016 European City of Culture status?

First the Berlin-Wroclaw-Krakow sleeper train got cut.  Then the Berlin-Wroclaw-Krakow daytime EuroCity train Wawel got cut back to Berlin-Wroclaw.  Then it disappeared completely in December 2014, a civilised train replaced by 5 hours strapped to a bus seat, as if Wroclaw was not a major city, but a remote village far distant from the European rail network.  In a month or two, all Dresden-Wroclaw regional trains will be cut, unbelievably (a) leaving a 2km gap across the border between rail services on either side and (b) leaving Wroclaw with no direct trains whatsoever to or from Germany & the West. Can such a remote and inaccessible village possibly be European City of Culture 2016?  Perhaps the title should be reallocated to a city people can actually get to…  Wroclaw needs to wake up and reassert its need for proper links to the rest of Europe.

A hat tip to Chris White and Podrożnik for today’s stories.

More:

• The Man in Seat 61 – News
• The International Railway Journal – Europe has lost its way…

Hopes for daily steam return at Wolsztyn…

Ride on a wing and a prayer

Ol49-69 at Wolsztyn station having just completed its second turn from Poznan on a scorching hot 6 August 2012. Photo BTWT.

The project (see: BTWT 8 May 2014) to create a cultural institute to take over the Wolsztyn engine shed and safeguard its long-term future has run into trouble. Either the agreement between PKP Cargo and the various local authorities will be so watered down so as to fudge the question as to how much actual cash will be invested by the latter in the project, or the scheme in its current form is a dead duck. With local authorities all over Poland finding it difficult to make their budgets balance it does rather seem that the return of daily steam-hauled passenger workings by locomotives stabled at Wolsztyn shed may not be as certain as once thought.

Part of Woltur’s home page on the WWW.

So, in the light of this bleak news, the announcement that the town of Wolsztyn, various small local authorities and the Wolsztyn Experience have all agreed to invest in a brand new tourist product – Woltur – comes like a breath of fresh air. Woltur has been set up by Patryk Szkopiec of IRPiK, the same organisation that runs Turkol, the long distance steam specials that run approximately once a month. Now, with Woltur’s local steam services supplementing TurKol’s long-distance specials, there will be steam activities every week in the summer season.

An important partner in the new venture is Przewozy Regionalne, the train operating company that will be actually running the trains and thanks to whose assistance passengers will be able to ride the Woltur services with tickets charged according to PR’s InterREGIO tariff. Congratulations from us at BTWT to everyone involved in setting up Woltur, and here’s hoping the new product is hugely successful and will prove to be one step on the way to restoring daily scheduled steam services to Wolsztyn.

More:

• Woltur
• Turkol

 

 

Sławomir Żałobka appointed UnderSecretary for Rail and Air!

Żałobka’s new workplace. Photo courtesy Google Street View

The office customarily occupied by the Minister responsible for Polish Railways has from today (9.2.15) a new occupant, Sławomir Żałobka. The office has been empty since 18 December when Żałobka’s predecessor, Zbigniew Klepacki was sacked by Prime Minister, Ewa Kopacz, as part of her review of government ministers.

Undersecretary of State Slawomir Żałobka studied Law and Administration at the University of Warsaw. He has been a civil servant for many years. He has worked the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education, the Office of the Prime Minister and the Office of the Civil Service. He was also a member of the Public Procurement Council, and acted as an arbiter in disputes involving public procurement.

BTWT sees Żałobka’s appointment as a consequence of Prime Minister Kopacz wanting a ‘safe pair of hands’ in a position that has the potential to embarrass the Government. At least one of Żałobka’s predecessors was sacked for being too ‘pro-rail’.

BTWT rescue plan for PKP IC

An open letter to the new PKP InterCity chairman.

Pendolino trainset prepares to reverse out of its platform at Krakow Glowny having formed the first ever Polish Pendolino public service train to Krakow: the 06:35 from Warszawa Centralna on 14.12.14. Photo BTWT.

Dear Jacek,

I hope that you don’t mind me addressing you as ‘Jacek’ rather than ‘Mr Leonkiewicz’. As you have worked in London for two years, I am sure that you are used to the English custom of business colleagues addressing each by their first names, and – although you have only worked in the railway industry for two years – I wanted to recognize you as a fellow railway professional. In fact I think that the brevity of your sojourn in PKP will work to your advantage – you will not yet have been infected by the cynicism that eventually saps the will of most senior PKP people.

Before I get started, I would like to congratulate you on your appointment to the position of CEO of PKP InterCity. By now you will have found out that the job is something of a poisoned chalice – you are the 9th PKP IC CEO in the space of the last ten years. You may be wondering why so few of your predecessors lasted any length of time. Were they really ALL so incompetent? Of course not, and my reason for writing to you is to offer you a few pointers so that you avoid the rapid career change that befell most of them.

Seriously, all joking aside, one of the things you should consider is talking to your predecessors – those who are prepared talk. Some have become bitter and are rusting in sidings like Poland’s historic steam locomotives, others have coped better and are developing their careers elsewhere. The latter will tell you that not all the key variables that affect PKP IC’s profitability can be managed the IC board or even the main PKP SA board. There are systemic factors which were outwith their control. Some of the strategies of your predecessors were actually quite good, but they were not given the time to make them work.

Here are thumbnail sketches of some of those you should talk to. Jacek Przesluga pointed out that the overall image of railways in Poland depended not just on the quality of the trains, but also on the standard of the stations. He wanted to set up a separate company to manage PKP’s main stations, but was dismissed before he could implement his plan. Janusz Malinowski was popular with staff and drew attention to the environmental benefits of travelling by train. He was sacked for making senior appointments without consulting his boss, a mistake that I am sure you will not want to repeat. Marcin Celejewski’s mission was to bring in airline style marketing and ticketing methods and to ensure the trouble free launch of the Pendolino. He succeeded – but only partially – in both, however a 5 million plus drop in passenger numbers made his position untenable.

EIC buffet car and WiFi carriage at Warszawa Centralna. Photo BTWT.

Steering the flagship company of the PKP group is a bit like steering a giant oil tanker – there is a considerable delay before any course corrections instituted by the captain are seen to have any effect. The captain has the benefit of training on simulators before he finds himself on the bridge of a real tanker. There is no similar training package for PKP IC CEOs and, being realistic, your ‘on-the-job training’ will take a year. Forgive me for being so blunt, but with PKP IC haemorrhaging cash and Parliamentary elections due no later than November, I do not believe that you have got a year before you have to be seen to have turned your ship around.

So to help you get your tenure off to a flying start I have prepared the following 10-point crib sheet. If you manage to implement all these recommendations you should – given a fair wind – outlast your predecessors.

1. Listen to your customers

   Set up a focus group. Run customer satisfaction surveys. Ride your trains and talk to passengers. If you need inspiration talk to Anthony Smith at Passenger Focus. By the way, did you know that the seats in the 2nd class section of your expensive new Pendolino trains do not fit the standard Polish male derrière?

2. Listen to your employees

   Another excellent way of discovering what your customers think of PKP is to talk to customer-facing employees like train managers and ticketing staff. They hear an enormous amount of complaints at first hand. Actually it is quite a good idea to set up a way of getting feedback from all your employees. Most of the PKP group’s internal culture is still firmly rooted in ‘Command and Control’ mode, a left over from the days when Poland’s railways were an integral part of the Warsaw Pact’s military machine. Instigating a ‘reverse channel’ so information can flow upwards from staff to their managers, regional directors and main board members should be one of your main priorities.

3. Improve ticketing

   In spite of Celejewski’s attempt to introduce low-cost airline discount pricing, the PKP IC ticketing system is still a shambles. Passengers travelling, say from Lodz to Zakopany and changing at Krakow Plaszow from one TLK train to another, should NOT have to buy two separate tickets (thus loosing the through journey discount) when purchasing their tickets through the Internet. Trying to find a bargain discount fare by ‘hunting’ between different days (a painless process on the discount airline portals) involves having to re-key in all the journey data for each day ‘tested’. It is only possible to buy tickets four weeks in advance. Why? This is something you should be able to sort out quite quickly. Setting up a ‘fair’ single fare for journeys involving more than one train operating company will take longer, but this is also a goal worth pursuing.

4. Improve the customer experience at stations

   In the last few years major stations have undergone complete rebuilds or makeovers – a process partly accelerated by Euro 2012 championship (though relatively few football fans actually travelled around Poland by rail). But there are still major deficiencies in the quality of the station experience: lack of decent waiting rooms with comfortable seats, incomplete information on destination boards, poor integration between commercial retail and station facilities. I could go on and on about my pet gripes, but rather than pay attention to me, why don’t you… ?

5. Make your managers and directors travel by train!

   I have always been amazed how much – bearing in mind that they work for a national public transport network – senior railway people in Poland travel about on duty by plane, or are chauffeured around in luxury cars. What a missed opportunity for senior people to see what is really happening on the railway! You should ban this practice immediately in PKP IC, and – should a suitable occasion arise – suggest gently to your boss, PKP SA CEO Jakub Karnowski, that he consider implementing such a ban throughout the whole PKP group.

6. Introduce a staff suggestion scheme

   Have you read Deming’s Quality Productivity and Competitive Position, Out of the Crisis and The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education ? If not, please order these two seminal books for yourself and for all your fellow board members. Deming proved that it is possible to increase quality and reduce costs simultaneously. His work had a profound effect on the competitiveness of Japanese industry post WW II. It takes time to change a company’s culture based on the ideas taught by Deming, but as a small step in the right direction, you should encourage staff (individuals or teams of co-workers) to submit ideas for improving processes and reducing costs by offering appropriate rewards.

7. Improve access for less-abled passengers

   To give PKP credit where credit is due, major stations around the PKP network are being fitted out with escalators and/or lifts. But due to a blind spot (no pun intended) PKP’s architects are failing to provide integrated solutions – complete routes that can easily be navigated without encountering a flight of steps. In the recently modernised station at Katowice, one of two pedestrian tunnels has been fitted with escalators leading to the platforms. Access to this subway is via a flight of steps. Further along the concourse an escalator and wheelchair ramp leads to another subway, but this tunnel has only stairs leading to the platforms. Similar barriers exist at the brand new station at Krakow Glowny. One can – for a time at least – excuse such problems at legacy buildings like Warszawa Centralna, but for brand new facilities this is inexcusable!

8. Empower staff to deal with certain problems on the spot

   When things go wrong (such as a broken down train) one of the most infuriating things that can happen to a passenger is to be told by the train manager that one has to buy a brand new ticket, and that a refund for the old ticket can only be obtained via a Kafkaesque complaints system. Please, please, empower train staff to deal with such minor problems on the spot, by granting them powers to revalidate old tickets, or issue new replacement tickets, without charging the customer a second time. You would not believe how much anger will be saved, and goodwill generated, by such a simple step.

9. Appoint an ombudsman

   Appoint a customer champion and show customers that InterCity is really on their side!

10. Re-enthuse staff and passengers with the ideal of safe, ecologically sound, rail transport

    Rail travel was once seen as the premium travel mode; in many parts of Europe it is being viewed as such again. PKP should be involving its passengers and staff in a campaign to promote the benefits of safe, ecologically sound, rail transport!

My sincere best wishes for your success

Jacek Leonkiewicz

New broom at the helm of PKP IC

Jacek Leonkiewicz. Photo PKP SA.

PKP IC’s new chairman, Jacek Leonkiewicz, graduated with a Masters degree in Banking and Finance from the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH) in 2007. While at the SGH he captained the football team and was an exchange student at the University of Madrid and the Copenhagen Business School.

Leonkiewicz gained work experience in London as an intern at Grant Thornton and J P Morgan and took a summer job as an analyst at Merril Lynch. On graduating he joined J P Morgan Case as a debt analyst. In 2009, he returned to Poland to join investment fund manager PKO TFI SA where he stayed for four years.

He became a board member of PKP SA in 2013, and, in 2014, he briefly joined PKP subsidiary, T K Telekom Sp. z o.o. as chairman of its supervisory board. Also in 2014, he became a member of the supervisory board of PKP Cargo SA and later that same year the chairman of the supervisory board of PKP Energetyka SA.

He helped PKP Cargo get in shape for its debut on the Warsaw stock exchange and has been working to prepare both T K Telekom and PKP Energetyka for privatisation.

He was appointed to the position of chairman of PKP IC on 16.1.2015. Here he will have his work cut out in stemming the desertion of customers to other modes of travel, as well as preparing the company for privatisation.

passengers carried by PKP IC each year (millions)

declining passenger numbers

Toxic 2014 results at PKP IC

Chairman sacked. Privatisation to be rushed through?

BTWT EXCLUSIVE

Unofficial 2014 figures for passengers carried by Poland’s TOCs show passengers deserting PKP InterCity in droves. PKP IC carried 30.7 million passengers in 2013, but only some 25.4 million in 2014, a loss approx of 5.3 million passengers (-17.2%). Most of the passengers deserting Poland’s long-distance train operating company were those who used PKP IC for relatively shorter journeys as the decline in passenger kilometres (from 7,085 million in 2013 to 6,221 million in 2014) was a more modest -7.9%.

To say that the result is a disaster for PKP IC would be an understatement. In 2013, PKP IC declared an overall loss of 87.2 million PLN, on a difference between sales revenue and operating expenses of 91.3 million PLN. Adjusting sales revenue in accordance with the approx 8% reduction in passenger km in 2014, and assuming that any savings achieved in operating expenses was cancelled out by increased debt service charges, the gap between sales revenue and operating revenue opens out to a huge 282.6 million PLN. What the overall effect on PKP IC’s bottom line is, is anybody’s guess, PKP IC has additional deprecation charges associated with the purchase of new rolling stock in 2014.

What is known for certain is that, after 12 months in post, former PKP IC chairman, Marcin Celejewski, has been turfed out of his job (though he remains a board member) giving up his chair to PKP privatisation guru, Jacek Leonkiewicz – the clearest sign yet that PKP may wish to rapidly divest itself of its troublesome flagship company.

Selling some, or even all of PKP IC, will not be easy. Compared to the UK, Poland’s long-distance passenger market is a mess: there are no through ticketing arrangements between the different passenger operators, journey times are lengthy due to speed restrictions due to poor track or construction work, ticket prices (when compared to earnings) are high, Poland’s TOCs having to pay some of the highest track access charges in Europe.

Stagecoach investigated the possibility of setting up as a TOC in Poland and decided the market was too risky – with the insight so obtained into Poland’s public transport market Stagecoach founder, Brian Souter, decided to set up PKP IC’s nemesis, Polski Bus, instead!