History of the railroad in Poland

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Poland was in the 19th century when the railway came up divided . The north and west belonged to Prussia , the south as part of Galicia to Austria . Central and Eastern Poland belonged to the Russian Empire , from 1815 initially as the so-called Congress Poland , a kingdom formally connected to Russia only in personal union. Its autonomy, however, was noticeably curtailed until it became part of the Vistula governorates in 1867 . Because of the differences between the Polish territory before the partitions, between the world wars and since the Second World War , a description of the history of the railroad in Poland should also bear in mind what was previously part of Poland and what belongs to Poland today .

Although in the 19th century all railways could only be built with concessions from the states of the time, which had their economic and military interests in mind, rail projects on Polish initiative were implemented at an early stage that served the interests of a country that did not exist on the maps.

Network development until 1918

First standard gauge in all parts

Vienna train station in Warsaw around 1850
Timetable from 1850 with reference to the connection to Breslau ("Wrocław"), Berlin and Hamburg

As the first now Polish railway line in Silesia , which was not yet part of Poland , the section Breslau (Wrocław) - Oława ( Oława ) of the Upper Silesian Railway was opened on April 1, 1842 , and the second - at that time not yet part of Poland - was opened on August 15, 1843 Berlin-Szczecin Railway .

In November 1843, the Warsaw-Vienna Railway, founded on Polish initiative as a joint stock company and taken over by the government of Congress Poland on July 4, 1843, opened its first section between Warsaw and Pruszków in the Russian part of Poland . Although located in the Russian Empire, the line from Warsaw to the Russian-Austrian border had European standard gauge of 1435 mm.

The first section of the Lower Silesian-Märkische Railway , which was supposed to connect Silesia with Berlin, went into operation on October 19, 1844 between Breslau and Liegnitz (now Legnica ).

The Austrian Kaiser-Ferdinands-Nordbahn was created on the basis of a privilege from March 4, 1836 to build and operate a railway line from Vienna to Bochnia in the Austrian part of Poland.

As the first railway line in Galicia and Lodomeria , however , the Kraków-Upper Silesian Railway , founded by the City of Kraków on March 1, 1847, went into operation on October 13, 1847 . Through its connection with the Warsaw-Vienna Railway, there was a continuous rail link between the two Polish capitals in 1848, i.e. at about the same time as the first continuous rail links from Berlin to the Rhine (1847) and between Berlin and Vienna (1849), and five years before first continuous rail connections between Berlin and Munich ( Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn 1853) and between Paris and Bordeaux (1853, Paris-Lyon-Marseille only 1854/56).

The third railway line in divided Poland (borders up to 1772 and 1795) was opened in 1848 by the Stargard-Poznan Railway , in several steps between Woldenberg in the Neumark (today Dobiegniew ) and Poznań ( Poznań ).

Austrian series from 1855/1856; Locomotives of this type were also used by the Eastern State Railways in Galicia

The Prussian Eastern Railway began its line construction at the Lukatz station (later Kreuz, today Krzyż Wielkopolski ) on the Stettin – Stargard line in Pomerania – Poznan . On July 27, 1851 Bromberg (was Bydgoszcz ) achieved on August 6, 1852 Danzig ( Gdańsk ). Since October 1857, the railway lines crossed the Oder Bridge in Küstrin ( Kostrzyn ) and the Vistula Bridge in Dirschau ( Tczew ).

After the rail connection from Vienna to Krakow had passed through Prussian Upper Silesia since 1849 , there was also a purely inner-Austrian connection from March 1, 1856 - very close to the Prussian border.

In the same year, the Upper Silesian Railway Company opened a line from Breslau ( Wrocław ) to Poznań.

Upper Silesian Krakow-off track was the kk Eastern State Railway and then the Galician Carl Ludwig-Bahn , the Krakow ago on November 4, 1861 Lviv (Pol. Lvov , Ukr. Lviv reached).

Standard gauge and broad gauge

St. Petersburg Railway Station in Warsaw 1862–1915

The first connection between Poland and the actual Russian network was the St. Petersburg-Warsaw Railway in 1524 mm .

The first connection between Warsaw and Prussian territory in the northern half of Poland was also established in 1862. It connected in Łowicz to a branch line of the Warsaw-Vienna Railway and led via the border station in Aleksandrów Kujawski and Thorn ( Toruń ) to Bromberg. Both sides had built up to the border station. The part built by the Prussian Ostbahn was also called the Bromberger Bahn.

As early as 1861, a branch of the Petersburg-Warsaw railway from Vilnius (Polish Wilno , then Russian and German Wilna ) reached the Russian-Prussian border near Virbalis (Polish Wierzbołów , Russian Вержболово, German Wirballen ) in the predominantly Lithuanian-settled northeast corner of Congress Poland and the first crossing between the Russian broad-gauge network and the European standard-gauge network was opened there. Of great international importance, the route in the sparsely populated area was of no use to Poland, as it ran tangentially from a Polish perspective and the area never belonged to Poland again after 1918.

As the railway network continued to expand, a further link between the Warsaw-Vienna railway and the Prussian network and several between the Austrian and Prussian networks was established in Upper Silesia. However, the Russian side was generally hesitant about links between the Russian network and the networks of its western neighbors, so that a direct connection between Warsaw and Poznan only came about after the restoration of Poland after the First World War and the only other connection between Russia built in the 19th century and the Austrian part of Poland is outside of today's Poland.

The up-and-coming industrial city of Łódź did not get its first rail connection until 1865/66. The double-track standard gauge line branching off the Warsaw-Vienna railway in Koluszki was opened on November 18, 1865 for freight and on June 1, 1866 for passenger traffic. With the broad-gauge line Warsaw – Kalisz , also built by the Warsaw-Vienna Railway Company from 1900 to 1902 , Łódź was then also connected to the broad-gauge network. Kalisz, in turn, was connected to the nearby Prussian border station Nowe Skalmierzyce in standard gauge in 1906 .

Narrow-gauge railways

In addition to the lines laid out in the respective standard gauge, narrow-gauge railways were also built in the three parts of Poland, including the line from Kielce to Herby Stare (on the then Russian-German border southwest of Czestochowa ) with a cape gauge of 1067 mm. Today the line has standard gauge. The narrow-gauge network of the Upper Silesian Narrow- Gauge Railway (OSSB) ( Górnośląskie Koleje Wąskotorowe (GKW) ) with a track width of only 785 mm was created in the Upper Silesian coal district , which is mainly used for industrial purposes .

The most extensive narrow-gauge networks created in what was then Prussia - in Pomerania , Kujawy and around Poznan as Pomeranian narrow gauge railways , Żuławska Kolej Dojazdowa , Wirsitzer orbit , Śmigielska Kolej Dojazdowa , Schrodaer orbit , Września orbit , Zniner orbit , Gostyner circular path , circular path Krotoschin-Pleschen . Their track width was also largely less than a meter.

Most of the narrow-gauge railways have been shut down since 1990, but museum operations are still offered on some of the remaining lines.

First World War

During the German occupation in the First World War , military railway directorates were established, on August 5, 1915, the military railway directorate 4 in Warsaw, on August 20, 1915, the military railway directorate 5 in Kovno and in October 1915 the line command in Lodz was converted into the military railway directorate 6 and after Brest-Litovsk relocated. In November 1915, a military railway directorate 8 in Schaulen (today: Lithuania ) was spun off from directorate 5 and was responsible for the railways in Courland .

On October 1, 1915, a German Railway Board of Directors of the Russian Railways was set up in Warsaw and affiliated to Military Railway Directorate 4. On February 1, 1916, a military general directorate was also set up in Warsaw , which also took on the tasks of the German Railway Board of Directors of the Russian Railways . Their headquarters were relocated to Berlin at the end of 1918 after the German defeat in the First World War.

Interwar period

Railway station in Gdynia ( Gdynia ), built in 1923, destroyed in 1939

organization structure

After regaining independence after the First World War, the Polish Ministry of Transport, founded in 1918, initially administered the Polish State Railways PKP ( Polskie Koleje Państwowe ) directly. From 1919 a special railway minister was head of the railway. Since 1926 the state railway became a company with its own general management, it was only under the supervision of the Ministry of Transport. The transit traffic crossing the Polish Corridor between East Prussia and the rest of the German Reich was also carried out by the PKP.

Network development

The consolidation of the three rail networks was a priority for Polish transport policy. For this purpose, among other things, the broad gauge network in the eastern part of the country was re-gauged to 1435 mm, which had already begun on the most important routes under German direction during the war. As early as 1921, when the gap between Kutno and the previous Prussian border station Strzałkowo was closed, the direct railway line Warsaw - Poznan was created. The conversion to standard gauge was completed by 1929.

Polish make:
PKP series Pt31 (1932–1940)

Mid-1920s, a major route construction project was started: to the sea port of Gdynia better hinterland (especially to the mining region of Upper Silesia to tie), was almost straight north-south direction extending carbon highway from Gdynia (Gdynia) to Katowice built. Another spectacular innovation was the east-west tunnel opened in 1933 under the capital Warsaw. The new main train station was built next to the old Vienna train station. It started operating, but was not quite finished when the Second World War interrupted Polish railway construction.

In the mid-1920s, on the one hand, a strong economic upswing set in in Poland, on the other hand, relations with neighboring countries improved (temporarily), which resulted in an increase in transit traffic. The exception was the relationship with Lithuania, which found itself in a cold war with Poland after the conflict over Vilna . The border (called the “ demarcation line ” by Lithuania ) was closed to all traffic.

In 1933, electrification began in the greater Warsaw area with direct current of 3 kV. This electricity system is still used in Poland today.

Rail vehicles

New (or used by other railway administrations) rolling stock was procured for the growing network. A considerable part of the vehicle fleet consisted of Prussian vehicles that came from the German Reich as reparations .

Second World War

The Second World War brought with it the dissolution of the PKP. After the occupation of Poland , the Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) placed the railway lines in the so-called General Government under the general management of the Eastern Railway (Gedob) on November 1, 1939 . During the fighting and immediately afterwards, many tracks and vehicles were destroyed; the rail network was re-gauged several times - depending on the front location - to Russian or European gauge.

The deportations to concentration camps took place mainly by train.

The PKP were re-established soon after the re-establishment of the Polish state.

After 1945

The Polish railway network in 1952/53
Warszawa Centralna railway station lobby since 1975

People's Republic until 1989

After the end of the Second World War, immense war damage had to be repaired, especially at train stations and bridges. In terms of international traffic, the military transit between the Soviet Union and the GDR became important.

The Warsaw Central Tunnel, made unusable by the German Wehrmacht after the Warsaw Uprising was suppressed , was electrically operated again in 1949, but the first train stations in the tunnel were not set up until 1963, and Warszawa Centralna only opened in 1975 instead of the old main train station.

New routes were also built:

  • 1953 Kielce – Busko
  • 1954 Skierniewice – Łuków
  • 1971–1977 the Centralna Magistrala Kolejowa ( Central Main Railway ), with a length of 223 km the largest railway project in the People's Republic.

With the completion of the double-track expansion of the Gdańsk – Sopot – Gdynia line ( Danzig – Sopot – Gdynia ) in 1953, electrical operations began there, the first supra-local in Poland after the Second World War.

PKP series ET41 (1977–1983)

Further electrifications were:

This means that the length of electrified lines in Poland exceeded 10,000 km

In 1972 Katowice got a new main train station.

In order to facilitate the supply of raw materials and sales of the Upper Silesian steelworks Huta Katowice and the Upper Silesian coal mines with the Soviet Union, the Linia Hutnicza Szerokotorowa (translated: broad gauge smelting line ) in Russian 1520 mm gauge from Hrubieszów , the easternmost city in Poland, built after Sławków Południowy in Upper Silesia.

In 1988 the maximum speed for express trains was increased to 160 km / h.

Third Republic

PESA intercity train from PKP (2006 ff.)

In 1992 the first Eurocity (Warszawa – Berlin) and intercity connections were established. After the end of the Soviet occupation and the collapse of the Soviet Union , the PKP tried to expand the transit routes, especially those via Poznan and Warsaw.

The modernization of the transit connection Frankfurt (Oder) - Kunowice - Terespol (border with Belarus ), part of the European long-distance traffic corridor E-20 , has also started between Warsaw and Poznan .

However, thousands of kilometers of rail lines have also been shut down and passenger traffic has been discontinued, so that the railway network has shrunk, especially in passenger traffic. However, some routes have also been reactivated. Regular traffic on narrow-gauge railways was completely discontinued, but it had been discontinued on many routes before 1990.

Division of the route network according to maximum speed

Parts of the PKP have now been transferred to newly founded companies, such as the Koleje Mazowieckie (Mazovian Railways) in the Warsaw area.

Due to the European Football Championship in 2012 , extensive modernization work was decided in 2008:

  • Route E20:
    • Warszawa - Łódź
      • Warszawa Zachodnia station - Skierniewice station (57.5 km; 2009–2012; 1.788 billion zlotys )
      • Skierniewice station - Łódź Widzew station (62.8 km; 2006–2008; 905.2 million złoty)
      • Łódź Widzew train station - Łódź Fabryczna train station + construction of the Łódź Fabryczna train station (7.3 km; 2010-2013; 1.888 billion złoty)
    • Warszawa - Terespol (211 km)
  • Route E30: Zgorzelec - Medyka
    • Bielawa Dolna (border) - Zgorzelec - Węgliniec - Wrocław - Opole (276 km; until 2012)
    • Opole - Zabrze - Katowice - Kraków - Przemyśl - Medyka (444.8 km; partly by 2015, partly still in planning)
  • Route No. 8: Warsaw - Krakow
    • Warszawa Zachodnia station - Warszawa Okęcie station (8.4 km; July 2007 − August 2008)
    • Turnoff to Okęcie Airport (2 km; October 2009 − June 2011)
    • Warszawa Okęcie Railway Station - Radom (2011-2015)
  • Route E65: Warszawa - Gdynia (349.34 km; of which 231.5 km by the end of 2012)
  • Route E59: Wrocław - Poznań, section: Wrocław - Voiv border . Lower Silesia / Woiw. Greater Poland (56 km; planned from 2009)

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Comité of the Wiener-Bochnia-Eisenbahn-company: The project of the Wiener-Bochnia-Eisenbahn viewed in technical, commercial and financial terms. Carl Gerold, Vienna 1836. (In it: overview map of the railroad route between Vienna and Bochnia, together with the wing railways ). (Online at ALO ).
  2. ^ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz from August 14, 1915, No. 41. Nachrichten, p. 273.
  3. ^ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz from September 4, 1915, No. 45. Nachrichten, p. 296.
  4. ^ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz of October 23, 1915, No. 53. Nachrichten, p. 348.
  5. ^ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz of November 13, 1915, No. 56. Nachrichten, p. 368.
  6. ^ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz from October 9, 1915, No. 51. Nachrichten, p. 336.
  7. ↑ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (ed.): Official Journal of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz of February 12, 1916, No. 7. Nachrichten, p. 56.
  8. ↑ Prussian and Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Journal of the Prussian and Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz from December 28, 1918, No. 68. Nachrichten, p. 422.
  9. ^ "Polska - koleje" , on: Encyklopedia Gutenberga online , accessed on November 29, 2018.
  10. ↑ Traffic map of Poland 1938: black = railway lines, red = roads