#hrj

波鉄 (Hatetsu) @HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl · Jul 20, 2026

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In the Lubusz Voivodeship, aside from the aforementioned U17, the connection to Legnica via Przemków and the already announced move of the primary long-distance connection to Poznań onto the to-be-rebuilt-and-heavily-upgraded line via Międzychód, the new iteration brings another U line to serve as an early implementation of part of the proposed "Western Trunk" service - the 4h U33 Gorzów Wielkopolski-Zbąszynek-Zielona Góra-Wołów-Wrocław. The P24 Gdynia-Tczew-Piła-Gorzów-Kostrzyn service following the route of the Ostbahn-running Bory Tucholskie gets downgraded to a U line and 4h Takt, which is fair enough. Instead, regional services between Gorzów and Krzyż would be boosted to hourly. The new plan includes also two reactivations not present in the 2024 version - the Gorzów-Myślibórz line would be rebuilt one station to "Gorzów Wielkopolski Strefa Ekonomiczna", which I assume corresponds to the old halt in the western suburb of Chróścik, and would provide a no doubt welcome, traffic jam-free alternative route to the many workers in the industrial and warehouse park. Perhaps an extension one stop further, to Baczyna, would make even more sense, but I guess land issues and likely poor prospects for partnership with the neighboring rural Lubiszyn Commune where that station would then be located might play a role in that decision also. The other, bigger one is Rzepin-Sulęcin-Międzyrzecz. Sulęcin was previously marked as a "bus service county town", but is now supposed to get trains back after all. This line is extant, and operational between Międzyrzecz and Trzemeszno Lubuskie for the supply of the garrison in Wędrzyn. The new axis thus created is unlikely to account for much in the big picture at first - but maybe in a battery-powered future it could be a good route to bypass problems around Zbąszyń to some extent? 14/ #HRJ #kolej #rail

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波鉄 (Hatetsu) @HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl · Jul 15, 2026

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In the south-west, a new 2h long-distance route P18 Wrocław-Kluczbork-Częstochowa(-Kielce-Radom-Lublin with every other train) will bring back qualified trains to Namysłów, and together with hourly KD regionals, provide a strong service between Wrocław and the town of 20k. These trains, and also the existing trains towards Łódź and Warsaw via Ostrów Wielkopolski and Kalisz have been rerouted via the new HSL, a very necessary measure to make room in the Wrocław node for local traffic (one of the greatest issues with Wrocław Główny today is that trains in the north-eastern direction have to first go west and make a run around town, sharing significant trackage with trains towards Poznań, Zielona Góra, Szczecin, Berlin, Węgliniec, Zgorzelec and Jelenia Góra). Farther out, the Kłodzko line is seeing state-supported trains replaced with voivodeship ones with the Baltic Express rerouting (but as we've already noted, this is now significantly less likely to actually happen), while every other Warsaw-Opole train gets extended to Kłodzko via Nysa. 12/ #HRJ #kolej #rail

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波鉄 (Hatetsu) @HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl · Jul 15, 2026

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Additionally, two more lines were added to the list of what Lower Silesia intends to reactivate - Chocianów-Przemków-Niegosławice I already knew about, though the proposal that the Lubusz Voivodeship take over running it came as a surprise. Then there's Lwówek Śląski-Zebrzydowa. Which is currently mostly running as a freight line serving a mineral mine, so that makes sense. What is interesting about this corner is that the authors explicitly cited the newly-conceived line U17 Jelenia Góra-Węgliniec-Zebrzydowa-Żagań-Żary-Zielona Góra-Kostrzyn-Szczecin (4h) as an example of optimizations made by using the Passenger Transport Model, which led to the route being drawn via Gryfów, Lubań and Węgliniec instead of the to-be-restored direct route via Lwówek. Which also added two direction changes but with multiple units that's not a problem at all (stares at Polish layover times with a direction change involved with a dubious expression). A north-south line that doesn't turn east with the Oder is not a bad idea, I just wonder about the execution with this route. 13/ #HRJ #kolej #rail

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波鉄 (Hatetsu) @HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl · Jul 12, 2026

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There's two snags that will need clearing here, as far as I can see - one is tariff integration between the long-distance trains and regionals, so they can act as a fairly regular intertown service together - this is something the government is considering, in a form comparable with the German model (select sections of longer routes synchronized with regional Takts and accepting regional tickets). The other - with all the trains pulling into Zduńska Wola station, which has only three platform tracks and connections to the Coal Trunk on in both directions on the same side, it will see double the passenger traffic it has now, even accounting for Wrocław trains replaced with HSR. In addition to the north-south trains mentioned before and an addition of rapid regionals Łódź-Sieradz, there would a remaining bihourly Warsaw-Łódź-Wrocław service, which in this iteration was rerouted between Skierniewice and Zduńska Wola via the planned "Y" HSL, while the route via Pabianice and Łask would be taken by a 2h Lublin-Szczecin service, rerouted via Radom, Łódź and Kalisz and extended to Szczecin from Poznań. Now, I'm no expert on capacity improvements, but I feel like with this maneuver, while there'll be more room for ŁKA locals on the "old" exits from Łódź, fitting these north-south trains between the dominant east-west traffic in Zduńska Wola in a coherent way is going to pose some difficulty without a bit of expansion. 10/ #HRJ #kolej #rail

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波鉄 (Hatetsu) @HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl · Jul 13, 2026

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Indeed, I think Łódź Voivodeship was one of the parts most affected by the changes to the project. In other things, connections north from Łódź were increased with a second 2h line P31 Kraków-Bydgoszcz joining and creating a pair with the previously proposed P11 Bielsko-Biała-Gdynia, and a formalized Flisak route U47 Łódź-Płock-Rypin-Grudziądz-Malbork-Gdynia with a 4h takt. Combined with hourly regionals to Kutno (increasing to half-hourly in peak), I think the single-track line should be able to handle it with the planned extra double-track sections. The other remaining big change is the creation of "capacity reservations for possible connections of a regional character" on the high-speed line, running from Kalisz to Sieradz on the old line, then onto the HSL, through Łódź, and splitting off after Brzeziny and alternating between Skierniewice and Łowicz, two major towns on the border with the Mazovian voivodeship. Interestingly enough, the new map shows a new HSL station just for these "tentative" trains in Wodzierady (a village which, despite the impression created by the schematic map, is actually closer to Szadek than Zduńska Wola). I'm sure the government thinks this is a good opportunity to win over some PiS voters, but they're not going to get the credit for putting it on a map… They ought to be praying they're in power by the time it's time for the ribbon-cutting. 11/ #HRJ #kolej #rail

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波鉄 (Hatetsu) @HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl · Jul 11, 2026

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So the week ended up being tougher than I expected, but back to Polentakt hype: The construction of a Bełchatów-Chorzew Siemkowice-Wieluń line was already envisioned in the previous iteration - now, however, it's planned to get long-distance trains as the 2h line P15 Terespol-Wrocław get rerouted through there. Smart - a connection to Warsaw and Wrocław in around 2 hours can do something for the area, an "inner periphery", now even more peripheralized since the new expressway diverted the main Wrocław-Warsaw road far to the north, via Sieradz. And we really gotta figure out what to do with Bełchatów. As for regionals, the goal is three lines with a train every hour between Wieluń and Chorzew and three out of four hours between Chorzew and Piotrków. Wieluń gets more trains because trains connecting Łódź to the south-west corner of the voivodeship with Wieruszów, and beyond the border also the Turmbahnhof Kępno, would go through there, also forming the main service on the Zduńska Wola-Chorzew section of the Coal Trunk Line currently covered by trains for Częstochowa. Perhaps another hint to a projected draw of Wieluń might be the presence of Wielton, one of Europe's biggest semi-trailer builders. (regional line routes in alt text) 8/ #HRJ #kolej #rail

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波鉄 (Hatetsu) @HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl · Jul 12, 2026

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The north-south axis there, the Coal Trunk Line, would also be integrated into the long-distance network, with two 4h U (supplemental) lines, the U30 Katowice-Kłobuck-Zduńska Wola-Inowrocław-Bydgoszcz-Czersk-Kościerzyna-Gdańsk Port Lotniczy-Gdańsk Wrzeszcz-Gdynia (the new Flisak, in a way, and something that would let you experience almost all of the line by day - I'm not sure they'll get 4 pairs running by 2035, but 2 might be reachable, more on this when we get to Pomerania) and the U31 Kielce-Częstochowa-Zduńska Wola-Konin-Poznań. This is even more sparsely populated land, a bit over a hundred kilometers of line for maybe 200k people at most - but the line is already there, and the platforms have not been ripped up, so a service with older vehicles could be set up relatively cheaply. And we're pretty good at building platforms anyway, so rebuilding them to modern standards should not be an issue, anyway. The regional service is shaped by the lower density and the fact that in Poddębice, the biggest town between Zduńska Wola and the main western trunk line, it'd be very hard for rail to become competitive with road transport towards Łódź:

the aforementioned Ł8 (2h) Kępno-Chorzew-Zduńska Wola-Łódź and two 4h lines to connect the Poddębice section
Ł81 (4h) Ponętów-Poddębice-Zduńska Wola-rapid to Łódź Kaliska-Łódź Chojny-Łódź Widzew
Ł82 (4h) Koło-Ponętów-Poddębice-Zduńska Wola-Chorzew Siemkowice-(alternating between Częstochowa and… Katowice) South of Chorzew, aside from the national U lines and the couple Ł82s, there would be bihourly Silesian trains for Częstochowa and Katowice via Kłobuck - a simple, workable concept.

9/

#HRJ #kolej #rail

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波鉄 (Hatetsu) @HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl · Jul 05, 2026

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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

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波鉄 (Hatetsu) @HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl · Jul 05, 2026

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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

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波鉄 (Hatetsu) @HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl · Jul 05, 2026

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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

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波鉄 (Hatetsu) @HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl · Jul 04, 2026

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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

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波鉄 (Hatetsu) @HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl · Jul 04, 2026

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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. 2/ #HRJ #kolej #rail

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波鉄 (Hatetsu) @HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl · Jul 04, 2026

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) 1/ #HRJ #kolej #rail

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