Y Shaped high speed rail line Poland

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.


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.

Facinating. Do you realize there are at least hundreds thousand of people, who could laugh at you and call you a peasant ?

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.

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)!

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.

But aren't they building one, isn't that the whole point?

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.

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.

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 :-)

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Also when the Warsaw to Gdansk section is complete..the overall saving in journey time is huge (in theory)!

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