Post #3762665

2026-07-12 13:48 UTC

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

Replies (1)

@HaTetsu@mastodon.com.pl 2026-07-12 13:49

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

Open ##3793226