History of rail transport in Poland
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- This article is part of the History of rail transport by country series.
The history of rail transport in Poland dates back to the first half of the 19th century when railways were built under Prussian, Russian, and Austrian rule. After Polish independence on November 11, 1918, the independent Polish state administered its own railways until control was surrendered to German and Soviet occupiers during World War II.
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[edit] 1835–1914
[edit] Silesia
In 1835, the railway line connecting Warsaw, Zagłębie Dąbrowskie, and Kraków was completed. The construction of the Wrocław–Upper Silesia line was started the same year by the Upper Silesia Railway Society. The railroad company was granted a license for this line in 1839.
Construction of the railway line from Wrocław to Mysłowice was finished in 1846, and Wrocław was connected with Berlin by the Lower Silesia-Marchijska Railway. One year later the construction of the Mysłowice–Kraków line was completed and the line was connected with the Warsaw–Vienna line.
The Upper Silesia Railway Society connected Silesia with Poznań and Szczecin in 1856 and the Karol Ludvig Galician Railway connected it with Lwów in 1861.
Opening the Silesian Mountain Railway from Zgorzelec via Luban Ślaski and Jelenia Góra to Wałbrzych (extended to Kłodzko in 1880) took place in 1867. In 1906, the opening of the Kaliska Railway connection with Prussian railway in Nowe Skalmierzyce took place.
[edit] North Railway of Kaiser Ferdinand
In 1836, a license was issued to the North Railway of Emperor Ferdinand, connecting Vienna, Ostrava, Kraków and Bochnia.
Two railway lines were opened in 1842: Wrocław–Oława (on May 22) and Oława–Brzeg (in August). One year later, the Wrocław–Jaworzyna Śląska railway line was opened by the Wrocław–Świdnica–Świebodzice Railway.
[edit] Warsaw — Vienna line
In 1838, a new company was founded, the Iron Railway Stock Society, and the same year it applied for a license to build the Warsaw-Vienna Railway line. The construction started in 1840, but in 1842 the company went bankrupt. The shares and property were seized by the government in 1843 and the construction continued. The first section (from Warsaw to Grodzisk Mazowiecki) was finished on June 15, 1845, and before December it reached Skierniewice. The construction was finished in 1847, and a year later, after the outbreak of the Spring of Nations, the first large international railway-military operation dispatched over 200,000 mounted Russian soldiers from Warsaw to Vienna and Budapest to help the emperor of Austria put down the uprising.
In 1859, the government of Russia turned over the Warsaw–Vienna Railway to private owners, Warsaw–Bydgoszcz Railway, under the condition that they construct a branch from Łowicz to the Prussian border near Toruń. In 1859, the line was connected with Silesia and Prussia. The opening of the Bydgoszcz line took place in 1862.
In 1868, the management of the Warsaw–Vienna line was terminated.
The Engineering Railway School in Warsaw was opened under the line protection in 1873 and became predecessor of the Railway Technical School in Warszawa. One year thereafter, the first railway bridge over the Vistula river was opened in Warsaw. As a result, the Warsaw–Vienna line was connected to the broad gauge lines on the east bank of the river.
In 1894, the Warsaw–Vienna Railway ordered 13 fast steam locomotives with the Prus S2 design, and a series of modern 4-axle cars which covered transit routes from Schwartzkopff. The first modern fast trains introduced under Russian occupation took place with the opening of the fast connection Warsaw to Kraków and Mysłowice.
The decision was made to nationalize the Warsaw–Vienna and Warsaw–Bydgoszcz Railways and the broad gauge track Kaliska Railway managed by this society. With this, the last great private railway in Russia was built in 1912—the new management board dismissed most of Catholic Poles. One year later, a decision was made to readjust the Warsaw–Vienna Railway to broad gauge track.
[edit] Prussian lines
Poznań was connected with Berlin and Szczecin in 1848 after erecting Stargard–Poznań Railway but, one year after, a connection from Berlin to Königsberg was planned, passing through stations like Kostrzyn nad Odrą, Krzyż, Piła, Bydgoszcz, Tczew, and Gdańsk. Main branches of this line, called East Prus Railway, were opened in 1852, but the construction of the connection between Tczew and Malbork was not done until 1852 because of construction of bridges across Vistula and Nogat rivers. The line opened in 1858.
An economic crisis caused by speculation in railways shares hit the stocks in Germany and Austria in 1875. The Chancellor of Germany, Otto von Bismarck, supported the suppression of speculation on railway joint-stock companies. He also supported the obligatory purchase of railways from private owners, as well as the introduction of an exclusive goods rate for the transport of agricultural products from Pomorze and Mazury to Berlin.
In 1893, the Prussian railway introduced the first modern fast trains using the new steam locomotive (S2/PKP class Pd1) which could reach a speed of 100km/h. The trains also included 4-axle closed cars with a a covered transit route between cars (D-Zug). One such fast train route was that from Berlin to Bydgoszcz and Gdańsk. In 1898, the first steam locomotive running on hot steam in the world, designed by Prof. W. Schmidt, was produced by the Vulkan company in Szczecin for Prussian railway (KPEV Hannover 74 S4). This opened a new age of steam locomotive development. Construction of the prototypes of a steam locomotive series for hot steam by Dr. Robert Garbe started in 1902. These were: fast train S4 (PKP class Pd2), passenger train P6 (PKP class Oi1) and cargo train G8 (PKP class Tp3).
In the same year the nationalization of the Marborsko–Mławska Railway (the last big private railway under Prussian occupation) took place.
Production of the long series of famous standardized hot steam locomotive prototypes by Prof. R. Garbe in the Linke-Hofmann locomotive factory in Wrocław for Prussian railway continued during 1906. 584 of S6/PKP class Pd5 were produced, of which 82 items were operated by Polish State Railways (PKP). Approximately 4000 of P8/PKP class Ok1 were produced, of which 257 were operated by PKP before World War II, and 429 after the war. One of these, Ok1-359, still runs in a museum in Wolsztyn today.
In 1910, the Oleśnica–Odolanów–Ostrów Wielkopolski line that shortened the connection between Wrocław–Łódź and Warsaw was opened. Construction of the prototype of the long series 5-axle Prussian cargo locomotive G10 (PKP class Tw1) with exchange chamber with steam locomotive P8 (PKP class Ok1) by Prof. R. Garbe took place the same year. Three years thereafter, production of cargo locomotive G8.1 of the Prus railway (PKP class Tp4) in the F.Schichau factory in Elbląg commenced. Final production figures were 5267 items (459 items by PKP). That was the longest locomotive series in Europe.
[edit] Russian lines
The first Polish broad gauge railway track was opened in 1866 on the Warsaw–Brest route, which resulted in obtaining connection from Warsaw to Moscow and Kiev. Another broad gauge railway track that opened on Polish soil was the Iwanogrodzko–Dąbrowska Rail from Dęblin via Radom–Bzin (now Skarżysko-Kamienna)–Kielce–Tunnel to Dąbrowa (now Dąbrowa Górnicza Strzemieszyce) and from Bzin to Łódź via Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski–Tomaszów–Koluszki. This caused a temporary decrease of cargo transport (mainly coal) on the Warszawa–Vienna Railway. The Russian General Staff confirmed the exclusive production of government Russian width rail (i.e., 1524mm) in the territory of Russia. The Russian authorities finally refused extension of the lines Wrocław–Warsaw Railway (Oleśnica–Podzamcze) to Łódź and Warsaw on Russian occupied territory.
Opened in 1867, the Łódko–Fabryczna Railway double rail from Koluszki to Łódź was the most profitable railway in Congress Poland. The same year, two other lines were opened: (Szczecin–Gdańsk via Stargard Szczeciński–Białograd–Koszalin–Lebork; Poznań via Zbaszynek–Rzepin with Frankfurt by Odra River and Gubin). In 1888, all railroads in Russia were nationalised.
The revolution of 1905 in Russia and the former Congress Poland stopped the rail traffic on many important routes and many important junctions.
[edit] World War I
Soon after annexing Polish areas, the German railway army readjusted the railway from Russian (broad gauge) to standard width (1435 mm). On the Russian side, most of the rolling stock of the Warsaw–Vienna Rail, Warsaw–Bydgoszcz and Kaliska Rail (as well as the headquarters of these lines) was relocated to Russia. In response to a counter-attack by the Russian army, German General Ludendorff ordered the destruction of strategic parts of the Warsaw–Vienna line and the Kalisz Railway between Warsaw, Łódź, Kutno and Kalisz.
In 1915, adaptation of a significant portion of all broad gauge track to standard width was completed by the German and Austrian armies. As the railway bridge over the Vistula River had been damaged, the Germans used ferries to move locomotives across the river in Warsaw. During the same year, construction of military railways on the routes Wielbork–Ostrołęka and Rozwadów–Sandomierz as well as additional lines on the Kalisz Railway took place. Modern German railway rolling stock replaced the broad gauge stock which had been removed to Russia.
[edit] 1918–1939
- For the state of Polish railways in 1939 see Polish National Railroads Summer 1939
On January 3, 1918, the Regency Council remitted the managing of the state railway in the former Congress Poland to the Ministry of Business and Industry. In fact, the management belonged to Militäreisenbahn-Generaldirektion Warschau (MGD). In October of the same year, the Regency Council brought into being the Ministry of Communication.
On October 31 1918, Polish railwaymen took over the Railway Directorate in Kraków and railways in Galicja and Śląsk Cieszyński, beginning the takeover of railways in the former Russian and Austrian sectors. Polish railwaymen took over the management of railways in the Warsaw district on the same day.
[edit] Independent Poland railways
Gaining independence, after 123 years of enslavement on November 11, 1918 allowed Poland to regain the former Russian and Austrian sector from military railways. The Railway Department in the Ministry of Communication was created and the name of Polish railways was fixed as Polskie Koleje Państwowe.
In December of 1918, the Great Poland Uprising exploded. The rebels took over the former Prussian sector of railways. One year later, the fights for Lwów were over and the former Austrian railway directorate was taken over by Poland. Taking over the railways from Prussians lasted until 1921.
After the outbreak of the Polish-Bolshevik War in 1920, German communists blew up French rolling stock and trains with equipment sent as aid in fighting Poland. Czechoslovakia stopped deliveries to Poland as well. After the victory over the Red Army, a great deal of damage in railway structure was discovered on the route along which the communists were retreating.
Polish railways administration finally took over the railways in Upper Silesia in 1922. That same year, a decision was made to divide railways in Poland into nine districts.
An economic crisis in 1930 forced the state to decrease its budget for railway investment, financial difficulties with coal trunk line Tarnowskie Góry–Gdynia, decrease in the number of passenger and cargo dispatch and deep economic crisis on railway. Profit decreased by 50% in comparison to 1929. In the next year, over 23,000 of PKP employees had been released and actions and strikes causes authorities to push on resolving problem. End of crisis and increase of cargo transport and income to PKP came in 1937.
[edit] Rolling stock
The government of Paderewski purchased 150 steam locomotives type Consolidation in the USA in 1919. The same year French authority offered a 100 of captured German steam locomotives and 2000 cargo vehicles. Next, 25 items of PKP class Tr20 locomotives were ordered from the USA in 1920.
The Polish fought to execute due compensation of railway rolling stock from defeated Central Powers, mainly Germany, in accordance with Art. 371 of the Versailles Treaty, and the Treaties of Saint Germain (from Austria) and the Trianon (from Hungary) took almost three years (1921–1923). About 2900 steam locomotives from the former German railways and over 1300 from the Austrian railways were received.
In 1921, the first orders for steam locomotives for PKP from German factories (PKP class Ok1, PKP class Tp4 and PKP class Tw1) and Austrian (PKP class Tr12, PKP class Okm11). Montage of Austrian steam locomotives PKP class Tr12 from spare parts in Warsaw Steam Locomotive Company Ltd. started as well.
Construction of the First Locomotive Factory in Chrzanowice, Poland was started in 1923. The same year, local production began in the Warszawa Steam Locomotive Joint Stock Company. The first Polish steam locomotives in Germany and Belgium (PKP class Tr21, PKP class Ok22, PKP class Ty23) were ordered. A year after, steam locomotive production in H. Cegielski factory in Poznań began. Financial problems of the State stopped the orders for the rolling stock abroad. Since 1933, PKP had to deal with competition by "wild" carters and raftsmen, offering horse and river transport for a long distance over 150 km at lower prices than the railway.
Since 1936, the Factory in Chrzanów worked on its own cost (without PKP orders) on fast steam locomotive PKP class Pm36 in two versions. Engineer K. Zembrzuski was the contractor of this locomotive. In 1937, the prototype Pm36-1 with aerodynamic lagging won the gold medal on the world exhibition in Paris. The speed test of Pm36 on the back way from Paris reached over 150 km/h on German rails.
[edit] New railway lines
In 1920, a decision was made to construct of new railway line urgently: Łódź–Kutno–Płock–Sierpc–Nasielsk, Kutno–Strzałkowo, and i.e., missing line passing by the connections broken by the new border with Germany and Gdańsk.
A year later, the building of the railway connection Kutno–Konin–Strzałkowo to shorten connection of Warsaw with Poznań began. The construction of railway line Kutno–Płock and Swarzewo–Hel started in 1922.
In 1924, the Nasielsk–Sierpc line and construction of a new port station and railway junction in Gdynia opened. A Custom War with the Germans, started in 1925, caused a rush to build a port in Gdynia and a detour line from Silesia to the seaside passing by German territory.
In 1927, the first Polish electric railway was built: private EKD Warszawa–Podkowa Leśna–Grodzisk/Milanówek with branches to Włochy near Warszawa. The French-Polish Railway Society finished construction of the coal trunk line between Bydgoszcz and Gdynia in 1933. In 1934, the beginning of the use of a new railway line, Warszawa–Radom, opening the new connection from Warszawa to Kraków, and preparation to electrification works on Warszawa railway junction and suburbs took place.
The opening of first electric line based on direct current 3000V from Warszawa to Otwock and Pruszków took place in 1936.
[edit] World War II
On September 1, 1939, railwaymen of Szymankowo stopped a German armoured train before its arrival on the bridge over the Vistula River and blew up the bridge. In a period between the 9th and 17th of September, the evacuation of rolling stock to the East took place. Government, archives, and government estate is evacuated by railway to Romania. After the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland on September 17, 1939, most of Polish rolling stock fell into Soviet hands.
The Polish railways on Silesia, Wielkopolska and Pomorze are adopted to German railways Deutsche Reichsbahn after September 25.
To the last moment before attack of Germany on the Soviet Union in 1941, the cargo trains transported goods from the Soviet Union to Germany. The beginning of German attacks on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 resulted in the possession of railway and rolling stock by Ostbahn and the possession of PKP rolling stock with broad gauge track and the reconstruction to standard gauge. The beginning of organized sabotage by the Polish resistance movement on railways took place about the same time.
The compression of sabotage on the railways, workshops, and illegal food transport to the cities occurred in 1942, as well as the beginning of the underground activity against the German railway in occupied Poland. That same year, global production of simple military steam locomotives, DR Kriegslok BR52 (PKP class Ty2), in Poznań and Chrzanów, and of steam boilers for these locomotives started in Sosnowiec.
The intensive resistance movement and sabotage of railwaymen and the underground brought very big losses and delays of goods deliveries to Eastern front. The repression, execution and transport of people to concentration camps could not stop these movements. The German defeat in Stalingrad, Kursk and the counteroffensive of the Red Army and air raids by the British and Soviets on rolling stock and workshops in 1943 brought a difficult situation in Ostbahn.
In 1944, the offensive of the Red Army and great damages on the railways, because of strong diversion of Polish railwaymen, stopped railway transport. The Soviet army and the 1st Army of Poland crossed the Bug river and arrive at the front line.
An explosion by the Warsaw Uprising caused total damage of Warsaw rolling stock, network and electric traction; both bridges over the Vistula River and the underground tunnel in Warsaw downtown are blown down.
In 1944, productions of first steam locomotive BR52 in released Chrzanów starts.
[edit] Communist period
In the beginning of 1945, the Ministry of Transport was created, as well as Regional Directorate of National Railways. Many pre-war locomotives were sent to the Soviet Union. Poland received many German locomotives as a compensation for war losses. In June, the rail connection with Warsaw was opened, using a temporary railway station made of warehouses. On September 15 1945, PKP took over management of all railway lines on new Polish territory from the Soviet Union. Most of these lines were either destroyed or inaccessible. The country was divided into 10 districts.
In 1946, the Fablok and Cegielski factories started the production of PKP class Pt47 (pre-war PKP class Pt31) and PKP class Ty45 (pre-war PKP class Ty37) locomotives. Meanwhile, the production of PKP class Ty42 (German BR52) was in process and Poznań prepared to start the production of PKP class Ty43 (German BR42) which had been produced in Szczecin previously. The situation in the Polish railways had been disastrous, so the government decided to buy 75 USATC S160 (Polish PKP class Tr201) American locomotives (on UNRRA basis), 30 British 9F (Polish PKP class Tr202) locomotives, and 500 S160 (Polish PKP class Tr203) locomotives, what was left from American army in Europe. Another 100 locomotives ordered from USA (Decapol - Polish PKP class Ty246) were sent to service Śląsk–Gdynia line. In the same year, electric trains started an operating line from Warszawa to Otwock.
Polish railways regained pre-war locomotives from Hungary, Czech Republic and Jugoslavia (in 1947), yet units from the eastern parts of Poland were taken over by USSR and rebuilt to operate on a wide gauge. Two years after the war's end, the first passenger cars are built in Cegielski (Poznań) and PaFaWag (Wrocław), while freight cars were being built in Chrzanów and Zielona Góra. At the same time, Warsaw railway lines were rebuilt together with the tunnel under the country's capital. As a part of the Ministry of Communication, the Bureau for Railway Electrification was founded. The first projects were to rebuild all lines that had been electrified before the war, and then the Warsaw–Żyrardów–Skierniewice–Koluszki and the Warszawa–Sochaczew lines would have been electrified. The electrification was planned to bring 3000V AC into Polish railways.
[edit] See also
- Polskie Koleje Państwowe
- PKP Group
- PKP locomotives
- Railway stations in Poland
- Polish locomotives designation
- Polish National Railroads Summer 1939
- Polish rail border crossings
[edit] External links
- PKP (Polish National Railways) official site URL accessed on February 5, 2006
- Railway history at historiakolei.fm.interia.pl URL accessed on February 6, 2006
- Warsaw rail history at www.warszawa1939.pl URL accessed on February 9, 2006
- Steam locomotives history URL accessed on February 5, 2006
- Historic and modelling magazine website URL accessed on February 9, 2006
- Jelenia Góra rail history URL accessed on February 9, 2006
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