The Railway Network in Poland – A Current Overview
AndyBTravels discusses the Polish railway network and train travel in Poland
Poland is a country where the railways are transforming rapidly, and train travel continues to improve every day.
My first experience travelling by train in Poland was in 1987, when I went from Kraków to Zakopane, which is a highly scenic railway line. I still have a few photographs from that journey, and in them you can see steam locomotives hauling freight trains along the route. It really was quite special.
Since then, I have visited Poland many times over the years.
From the perspective of #AllTheLinesEurope – a project in which I aim to travel on every railway line with scheduled passenger services – Poland is a very interesting country.
There are many railway lines in Poland that at the moment are either used only by freight trains or have been mothballed. However, slowly but surely, these lines are being reactivated for passenger traffic. With each timetable change in Poland – which generally happens several times a year – another section of line seems to reopen. That is fantastic to see.
In that sense, Poland is really one of the growth countries in Europe for railways, particularly in terms of developing and expanding the network.
Investment and development
Over the years that I have been travelling to Poland, I have witnessed an astonishing level of investment in the railway infrastructure. Lines are being continuously redeveloped.
What the Polish railways often do is close a line completely and carry out a full-scale refurbishment. For example, when I first travelled from Kraków to Katowice, the journey took about three hours. Now it takes around 50 minutes. It is a total sea change.
Investment is being made across the country, both in renovating railway lines and in rebuilding railway stations. Although these newly rebuilt stations are aesthetically very pleasing, I sometimes jokingly describe them as “fur coat, no knickers” because they still need work on the softer side, such as opening more shops and generally making adjustments to be more passenger-friendly.
Train operators
The way trains are organised in Poland is quite unique, so it’s helpful to be familiar with the different operators in the country. Until relatively recently, there were no real open-access operators in Poland. However, there was already a strong division between different operators.
You have the national long-distance operator, PKP Intercity. Then you have Polregio, which operates regional services. However, not all regional services are run by Polregio, because there are also operators run by the local voivodeships – the regional authorities. Examples include KD, Koleje Dolnośląskie, and KS, Koleje Śląskie.
In some ways, these operators are quite separate from each other. An Intercity ticket, for example, is only valid on Intercity trains. If there is a delay, you would have to wait for the next Intercity service rather than using a local train. So the system can feel a bit disjointed, although it does ensure fairly good coverage of the country.
More recently, open-access operators have started to appear in Poland. RegioJet has now established itself in the Polish market, and Leo Express has also begun operating there. Both companies previously ran international trains into and out of Poland, but they now also operate purely domestic services, including between Kraków and Warsaw. Both companies are looking to expand their networks even further.
From the passenger’s perspective, these developments seem to be having a positive effect. Passenger numbers are rising very strongly, in fact to the point where the railway is sometimes struggling with capacity on trains. This is especially noticeable on Fridays and Sundays, and during the summer, when many people travel domestically to resorts on the Baltic coast, or head to the mountains.
In some ways, the railways in Poland could be described as victims of their own success. They are addressing this by investing in new rolling stock and also acquiring some second-hand vehicles. Overall, the system is quite complicated, but it does seem to work for the Polish people.
Polish trains
When it comes to the trains themselves, it is also a completely different railway compared with 20 years ago.
Within the PKP Intercity network itself there is quite a variety of trains. The top category is the EIP (Express Intercity Premium), which run along the corridor from Gdynia through to Kraków. It is a kind of pseudo high-speed service. An interesting detail is that these trains were partly funded by the European Union. Because of that, the EU imposed a time limit during which they could only be used for domestic Polish services. That time limit has now expired. As a result, the first international journeys they will operate are expected to run to the Czech Republic. In fact, some of the trains are currently undergoing certification work there.
There is also a brand called EIC, which is a superior fast intercity train operated with a classic locomotive and carriages and includes a full dining car. These trains operate on routes such as Warsaw to Poznań and then onwards to Szczecin or down to Wrocław. They cover premium routes that the Express InterCity Premium trains do not serve. I do not know what the future of those trains will be, or whether they might eventually be replaced by EIPs.
What I would say, however, is that these EIC trains are probably among the best classic locomotive-hauled services in Europe. They offer a mixture of open carriages and compartment coaches, and they also have a full dining car.
A lot of the traditional locomotive-hauled Intercity trains have also been replaced by new electric multiple units built by Stadler. The rolling stock that previously operated those Intercity services has been cascaded to a brand known as TLK. These are long-distance routes that are not part of the main Intercity category, and this cascade has enabled the trains to be strengthened in order to cope with demand. In that sense, it is a very sensible use of rolling stock. Given that the EIP and EIC trains are relatively expensive, many Poles still use the cheaper TLK services.
Looking at the trains themselves more generally, they are clean and comfortable. The toilets have completely changed over the years. Nowadays they have toilet paper and hand towels, which if you had travelled on them 20 years ago might not always have been the case.
Night trains
In Poland, you will also find numerous domestic night train services. Before many lines in Poland were upgraded for higher speeds, overnight train travel was a very attractive option because journeys could take 12 or 13 hours. That meant travelling overnight made a lot of sense. With the development of the network and faster speeds, however, those same journeys can now sometimes be done in seven or eight hours, which makes them more attractive as daytime journeys.
Because of that, I am not entirely sure what the long-term future of domestic sleeper services within Poland will be. In the summer there is a lot of travel from the south, from places such as Kraków and Katowice, to the northern coast for holiday traffic, and I think sleeper services will probably continue for that reason. In winter there is also travel from Warsaw and the Tricity area heading south to the ski resorts. Poland has quite a number of ski resorts, so sleeper trains can be used throughout the year rather than leaving the sleeping cars idle for part of the year.
The trains themselves usually include both sleeping cars and couchette cars. They are quite comfortable. A few of them are modern, but most are quite old, although they are very well maintained and still offer a decent service.
Polish dining cars
A large number of trains in Poland still have dining cars, which are operated by a company called WARS. Some of them are the traditional full-carriage dining cars, while on the newer EIP and Intercity units the facilities are more modular, perhaps a quarter of a carriage or half a carriage devoted to the dining area.
The dining is affordable, although I have noticed that the price has slowly been creeping up. Perhaps that simply reflects the development of the Polish economy and the strength of the złoty.
Interestingly, in Poland you can only consume alcohol on the train if you buy it and drink it in the dining car. That is a small quirk of the system. A few other railways may have similar rules, but Poland is definitely one where alcohol can only be consumed in the dining car.
The dining car also serves my favourite dish to have on European trains, which is żurek, a sour rye soup served with whole wheat bread. It is fantastic to sit in these dining cars, watching the Polish countryside pass by while enjoying a bowl of żurek or another tasty dish from the menu.
Scenic railway lines
Much of Poland is very flat and rather featureless, so you often see long stretches of pastoral scenery when travelling by train. However, when you are in the south you have the Carpathian Mountains, which provide some stunning views.
In the north, there is also coastal scenery, particularly along the famous railway line to Hel, which runs along a narrow spit extending into the Baltic Sea. That is quite a wonderful experience. If you want to travel to Hel in comfort, it is better to go in the autumn, winter or spring, because in summer the trains can be extremely overcrowded.
Another scenic route runs from Poland into Slovakia via Bielsko-Biała. It’s a secondary line but truly stunning. In the same area, there’s a line that borders Poland and Czechia, connecting towns such as Cieszyn on the Polish side and Český Těšín on the Czech side. It’s interesting to walk between the two towns, and both are small and charming.
The joys of train travel in Poland
I feel very privileged to have been able to get to know Poland so well through exploring the country by train. Because of the vast size of the country and the density of the railway network, I often had to stay in second- or even third-tier cities rather than only the major destinations. A lot of such cities turned out to be absolute gems as well.
One place that completely surprised me was Zamość, in the east of the country close to the Ukrainian border. I had not been expecting much, but it absolutely blew me away. There were also other places such as Toruń and Wrocław, which I had not previously known much about but which turned out to be fantastic places to visit. Wrocław is a particularly good city for walking, while Toruń has a great deal of history.
Another journey I particularly enjoyed was taking a train to one of the spa towns in the south of the country. There are quite a number of these spa towns, and they are very pleasant places to visit. One that I remember especially is Kudowa-Zdrój. It is quite isolated, but it was a wonderful place to visit. The train journey there was superb, and it is somewhere I would actually consider returning to and spending a few days enjoying both the town and the spas.
These visits to seemingly random small towns often lead to some fun conversations. Back in the early 2000s, when I lived in London and many younger people from Eastern Europe were still working in the British hospitality industry, I used to dine out quite often. I would often have a chat with the servers, just general conversation, and I would ask them where they were from. Quite often they would ask me to guess. Usually I could guess the country from the way they spoke English.
When they told me they were from Poland, they would often say a well-known city such as Warsaw, but then clarify that they actually came from a town perhaps 100 kilometres away. Quite a few times I was able to reply that I had actually been to that town and stayed there. Even with some relatively small places, I had visited them during my travels. People were often quite surprised that someone from abroad knew their town, and they were clearly proud that someone had visited it and knew about it by name.
International rail links
With so many Polish people living abroad and strong commercial links between Poland and its neighboring countries, it’s unsurprising that Poland is well connected internationally by train.
Poland previously had many connections to the east, including trains to Minsk, St Petersburg, and Moscow. As political and economic situations have changed, however, those services are no longer running, so you cannot travel from Poland to Russia or Belarus by train anymore.
There is still a direct train from Warsaw to Kyiv, and many new links have also been established between Poland and Ukraine. There is significant movement between the two countries, particularly since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, and Poland has received a very large number of Ukrainian refugees. The development of rail links between Poland and Ukraine has therefore been very significant.
The Warsaw–Kyiv night train offers a particularly evocative atmosphere. Some of the carriages used on that train are heated with coal stoves, which are used to provide hot water and warmth in the carriages. You can be standing in central Warsaw and suddenly smell the smoke, which creates a very distinctive atmosphere reminiscent of Soviet-era train travel.
There are also connections to other neighbouring countries, such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia. There is open-access competition involving operators such as Leo Express and RegioJet on routes to and from the Czech Republic.
Travelling westwards, the development of the Berlin–Warsaw route is particularly noticeable. When I first travelled on it, there were perhaps one or two trains a day. Now there are up to a train every two hours, and I would expect that within the next few years it could become an hourly service between the two cities. There is a great deal of movement between Poland and Germany.
Another area that has developed during the time I have been travelling is the link between Poland and Lithuania. For a long time there were no railway connections between Poland and the Baltic states. About 15 years ago, however, Polregio started a weekend service between Białystok and Kaunas. I was on the inaugural journey, which was quite memorable because we hit a tree in Lithuania and were delayed by about four or five hours. When we finally arrived in Kaunas, the train conductor’s husband drove me to my hotel at three o’clock in the morning. Right now, there are about three trains a day linking Poland and Lithuania. It is another example of the constant development of railway connections in the region.
There are also some very good international overnight links from Poland. As with the domestic sleepers, there seems to be something in the Polish psyche about travelling overnight by train. There are overnight connections from Poland to Prague, Budapest, Vienna, and Munich. I actually see opportunities for further development of the international night train market. As the daytime network continues to expand and reliability within Poland improves, I think some rolling stock currently used for domestic night train services could be deployed internationally instead.
AndyB’s train travel tips
Poland is a great country to explore by train. Fares are generally affordable and good value, so buying point-to-point tickets is often the best option.