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Y Shaped high speed rail line Poland


delphiandomine  86 | 17823  
11 Dec 2011 /  #61
Poland doesn't have the money for it yet. Like the guys said above if the rest of the rail system wasn't neglected so much during commie and post commie times the money would have been there to be spent on this project. It would have been nice thought :-)

What's crucial is that they don't abandon the work to prepare the route - if everything is completed as it's planned to be, minus the trains/tracks - then it will be a formality to build the line in the future. As far as I know - all existing work should go ahead, so no issue there.

Where Gerries would built a highway, decent express road will be enough

Actually, Polish expressways aren't worse than German highways. I was driving on the German A12 yesterday - it's worse than your average S-class road in Poland.

300km/h would be enough - it would mean 90 minute (at most) connections to Warsaw, which would radically change things in terms of transportation. The train still wins for now, but when the A2 is complete - the train will lose out massively to the car.

And yes, we laugh at those peasants, because they had exactly the same opportunity as we had. And they blew it.
Grzegorz_  51 | 6138  
12 Dec 2011 /  #62
And yes, we laugh at those peasants, because they had exactly the same opportunity as we had. And they blew it.

Facinating. Do you realize there are at least hundreds thousand of people, who could laugh at you and call you a peasant ?
peterweg  37 | 2305  
13 Dec 2011 /  #63
Poland is somewhat perfect for such high speed lines - most connections between major cities are on the flat (not much hills between Warsaw/Lodz/Poznan/Wroclaw/Krakow) and there are plenty of people willing to pay a lot of money to travel quickly.

No chance of the government spending it on Krakow. A decent road to the capital? no chance. Krakow was completely missed from this plan as well.

Grzegorz_ is right. Build the road system and improve the existing rail network to a basic level first. Spending billions on a high speed network is a poor investment.
vjmehra  16 | 80  
4 Jan 2014 /  #64
Does anyone have any updates on the high speed rail at all?

I saw this article last year:

thenews.pl/1/12/Artykul/144058,Highspeed-Pendolino-train-arrives-in-Poland

Which (along with a couple of other newspapers) suggests that the line may be up and running by the end of this year...but its not specific as to which section(s)!
sobieski  106 | 2111  
5 Jan 2014 /  #65
There is no dedicated high-speed line in Poland. The only line designed for high-speed trains is the CMK (Centralna Magistrala Kolejowa) Central Railway line.
This is suitable for speeds up to 250 km/h and runs between Silesia and Warsaw, and has a length of 224 km.
But this is used not only by IC and EC trains, but also by the slower IR.
During speed tests in December 2013 the new Pendolino did 293 km/h on the CMK.
vjmehra  16 | 80  
5 Jan 2014 /  #66
But aren't they building one, isn't that the whole point?
cms  9 | 1253  
5 Jan 2014 /  #67
When a Polish official says a couple of years he means ten.

At least they have started and are testing the trains but dont expect any y shaped fast link before 2020.

the warsaw-berlin motorway opened its first section in 2004 and took 8 years to finish. this fast rail project is much more complicated.
kpc21  1 | 746  
5 Jan 2014 /  #68
But aren't they building one, isn't that the whole point?

Not building, but preparing the investment - yes. But the current government is not going to built it before 2020, they said that they want to focus on the existing normal speed railways...

The Centralna Magistrala Kolejowa isn't a new line, it exists since the 70's. Now it is being modernised to prepare it to speeds of up to 250 km/h. 160 km/h is reached also by trains on Warsaw-Poznań line.

The underground £ódź Fabryczna station, which is being built now, will be prepared for the Y-shape hish-speed crossing it.
vjmehra  16 | 80  
5 Jan 2014 /  #69
Well even modernising the old lines is a big step!

It amused me last week as we took some English friends of ours to Zakopane (via Krakow) and they couldn't understand how the bus could possibly be quicker than the train :-)
kpc21  1 | 746  
5 Jan 2014 /  #70
A strange thing is that in Poland constructions connected with railway take much more time then the ones connected with roads. For example they are still renovating the line from £ódź to Warsaw since 2005. Building of a parallel section of the A2 motorway lasted 2 years, from 2010 to 2012... I'm afraid, what will happen, when they will be building a parallel section of the Y railway line :)

The railway in Poland has been neglected for years and now most of the infrastructure is in a bad condition. The government still prefers to focus on roads and motorways. However, it's now much better than before.
vjmehra  16 | 80  
5 Jan 2014 /  #71
To be fair the road network needs work too, so its probably not right to focus on one or the other, they both need work!

Like the UK though I guess, the capital always gets the most attention, with the rest being neglected.
Zibi  - | 335  
5 Jan 2014 /  #72
Like the UK though I guess, the capital always gets the most attention, with the rest being neglected.

That certainly is not the case in Poland. Let me remind you that Warsaw was last of the big polish cities to be connected to highway grid, it does not have a road ring.
vjmehra  16 | 80  
5 Jan 2014 /  #73
Well the rail plans seem Warsaw centric and the motorway infrastructure is better than Krakow (which is basically what I'm comparing it to), but to be fair I was just assuming money is spent on Warsaw infrastructure rather than the rest of the country!
kpc21  1 | 746  
5 Jan 2014 /  #74
Kraków has a half of a motorway ring, Warsaw has no motorways... But on the other hand only Warsaw has the underground. In case of diffrerent city facilities, Warsaw can do much more - not only with the money of the city, but also with some support from the country.
sobieski  106 | 2111  
6 Jan 2014 /  #75
I do not know where you live...but part of the Warsaw ring road is finished (southern half).
As for high-speed railways... It would be much better if they invest these billions in upgrading the existing network, repairing all these ruined stations. Pendolino & co are PR-wise maybe cute..l.but it does not help the everyday commuters. Yes, they are not the capitalist expat big shots travelling first class Warsaw-Kraków, but they are the mainstay of PKP.

But then, upgrading the local train network around Warsaw does not make sexy headlines. Personally speaking, I do not give a fig about these high-speed lines. Travelling to Kraków 3 hours or 2 hours 30 min...what's the problem? What I do care about is that there is a decent.clean and plentiful local train network.
cms  9 | 1253  
6 Jan 2014 /  #76
The difference between 2,30 and 3 hours is that it gives you an advantage over the plane and the car, especially if you want to travel there and back in a day.
vjmehra  16 | 80  
6 Jan 2014 /  #77
Also when the Warsaw to Gdansk section is complete..the overall saving in journey time is huge (in theory)!
sobieski  106 | 2111  
6 Jan 2014 /  #78
The difference between 2,30 and 3 hours is that it gives you an advantage over the plane and the car, especially if you want to travel there and back in a day.

The money spent on this 30 minutes (billions of PLN) should be spent on everyday commuters.

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