Linia Hutnicza Szerokotorowa
The Linia Hutnicza Szerokotorowa or railway line 65 ( German hut broad-gauge route , abbreviated LHS) is the longest broad-gauge line (1520 mm) in Poland . It runs on a single track from Wolodymyr-Wolynskyj in western Ukraine to Sławków in the Silesian Voivodeship .
The railway line was built to supply the Huta Katowice steelworks with iron ore from what was then the Soviet Union . In addition, were sulfur and coal transported to the Soviet Union.
Today it is operated by a subsidiary of Polskie Koleje Państwowe , PKP Linia Hutnicza Szerokotorowa spółka z oo , based in Zamość .
Route
In Gródek ( hrubieszów county ) (1) the LHS crosses the bow .
Customs clearance of trains takes place at the border station in Hrubieszów (2).
In the station Zamość - Bortatycze (3) there are maintenance facilities for rolling stock.
It then runs through the stations Biłgoraj (4), Wola Baranowska (6) and Staszów (7).
The Grzybów station (8) is currently used as an alternative station. It used to be used to load sulfur that was transported to the USSR.
In Gołuchów train station, liquefied gas is transhipped in a special terminal.
In the Sędziszów Nord station (9) there is a gauge change system on the standard gauge .
The stations in Kępie (10) and Zarzecze (11) are alternative stations.
The station Sławków Południowy (Sławków Southern) (12) is the end point of the LHS. There the ore is unloaded and transported via a conveyor system to the smelter in Dąbrowa Górnicza . The Sławków Euroterminal , a container terminal, is also located here. From here there are regular rail connections with the container terminals in Gdansk , Swarzędz , Maddaloni (Italy) and Schwarzheide (Germany).
history
In the 1970s, solutions were sought to supply the Huta Katowice steelworks with raw materials. There were two possible solutions: firstly, the expansion of the existing network, secondly, the construction of a new line from the USSR . Economic reasons spoke in favor of the second solution. The CBSiPBK ( Central Office for Railway Construction Designs and Studies ) was responsible for the implementation of the planning . Józef Skorupski was appointed chief engineer . A total of 21 engineering offices, eight geological drilling companies and three technical universities were involved in the planning. Today it is no longer possible to say exactly how many people were involved in the construction of the route ; soldiers, schoolchildren, students and people from the OHP (Ochotnicze Hufce Pracy - Voluntary Working Groups ) were also deployed.
Construction of the line began on November 7, 1977. On November 30, 1979, the line was put into operation.
Until the 1990s, a night express train from Łudyn ( Лудин ) (east of the Polish-Ukrainian border) to Olkusz ran on the route . From there there was a direct connection to Katowice .
After the political and economic turnaround in 1989, the LHS fell into a crisis. In 1993 the operation of the line was outsourced from the individual district administrations to a subsidiary of PKP.
At the beginning of 2020, the route was used for the first time for a train on the New Silk Road , a train from Xi'an in the People's Republic of China , which entered the EU without changing gauges at the Polish border . The train started in Xi'an on December 24, 2019 and reached Sławków on January 5, 2020. In the Sławków Euroterminal, the transported containers were reloaded onto standard-gauge freight wagons and trucks.
Trivia
The Świętokrzyska Kolej Dojazdowa narrow-gauge railway crosses the LHS line near the village of Wygoda (Gmina Imielno) . The routes cross a second time in Chmielnik .
See also
literature
- Ryszard Stankiewicz and Marcin Stiasny: Atlas Linii Kolejowych Polski 2014 . Eurosprinter, Rybnik 2014, ISBN 978-83-63652-12-8
Web links
- Website of the operating company
- LHS fansite
- Lines (Polish)
- Pictures ST-44 series of the LHS
- Pictures SM48 series of the LHS
- Timetable of the Ukrainian Railways to Isow from 2014 (Ukrainian)
- Route documentation of the Ukrainian section Wolodymyr-Wolynskyj to Isow (Russian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Routing of the LHS (Polish)
- ↑ LHS fansite (tech. Data) (Polish)
- ↑ PKP , LHS, LLC: A Train from China to Poland: first time without transshipment at the border . In: OSJD Bulletin 1/2020, pp. 29f (30).
- ↑ LHS fansite (excerpts from the course book) (Polish)
- ↑ LHS fansite (history) (Polish)
- ↑ PKP , LHS, LLC: A Train from China to Poland: first time without transshipment at the border . In: OSJD Bulletin 1/2020, pp. 29f (30).