Ireneusz Merchel: We are modernising the main freight railway routes

What has been going on in the railway industry in recent years and what are the investment plans for the coming period?

In 2016, the railway stopped closing up and started opening up again. There were 24.5 thousand km of active railway lines thirty years ago as compared to 18.5 thousand in 2016. Today, we have 19.3 thousand railway lines, which means that we have restored 800 km to service. We are improving the parameters of the lines so that trains can travel at 160 km/h and more. We are modernising rail connections between major cities to handle speeds of 160–200 km/h, which results in shorter journey times. For example, a train travels 2.5 hours from Warszawa to Gdańsk (almost 400 km). Other benefits include the expected comfort of travel and hundreds of more accessible railway stations. It was also possible to restore trains on various lines that have been closed for years, such as Legnica-Rudna Gwizdanów, Lublin-Łuków, Mielec-Dębica, or Wrocław-to Jelcz via Wrocław Swojczyce. A higher level of safety is provided by new collision-free crossings, modernised level crossings, and state-of-the-art equipment.

In the coming years, we will continue the expansion of the Polish railways, especially in terms of adapting the infrastructure to the requirements of the TEN-T core network, full electrification of individual railway lines included in the TEN-T core network corridors, adapting the infrastructure to run goods trains at a speed of 100 km/h, and implementing the ERTMS/ETCS system. Projects are also planned to improve capacity in urban agglomerations by extending agglomeration inputs to include four tracks to separate suburban, long-distance, and freight traffic. We should not forget about the government’s rail programmes that will improve access to rail, either; i.e. the Rail Plus Programme and the government’s programme for the construction or upgrade of railway stations 2021–2025. 

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Transport

Ireneusz Merchel: We are modernising the main freight railway routes

The aim is to achieve a commercial speed of over 40 km/h, says Ireneusz Merchel, President of PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe [Polish Railways].

What about the carriage of goods?

We are modernising the main freight railway routes: north-south and east-west. We are now focusing on the north-south routes from Silesia to the ports of Gdańsk, Gdynia, Szczecin, and Świnoujście. In the last three years, we have completed work on the port access station in Gdańsk. The number of tracks has increased from 12 to 25. We have doubled the transport capacity. We are in the final stages at the ports of Gdynia, Szczecin, and Świnoujście. The work will be completed by mid-2023. Access to the ports has been a bottleneck.

We are modernising the entire arterial line from Silesia to Tri-City. The section from Bydgoszcz to Gdynia is important. The line was built in the 1930s and was neglected in the 1970s. Freight traffic died out, although it is an excellent line bypassing large cities. The work in this section will be completed within a few years. The aim is to achieve a commercial speed of over 40 km/h.

If the stops caused by carrier organisation issues (train crew shifts, locomotive changes) are not taken into account, we are able to reach this speed on a number of sections. For example, trains travelling to Silesia from the border with Belarus have an average speed of 55–60 km/h.

Today, the demand for the transport of goods from Ukraine to Poland and on to Europe has increased. What does the situation look like here?

We have five border crossings with Ukraine. Only two of them were open, while the others were virtually non-existent. Now, we are expanding all the crossings to improve their capacity. However, we should remember that this is an EU border, with regulations, customs clearance, and border guards. Moreover, a different track gauge means that reloading of goods or exchange of trolleys by carriers is needed. The reloading sometimes takes several days.

Back to the ports of Gdynia and Gdańsk. We should put the emphasis on the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). There are now two intermodal corridors running through Poland. How about the third one, running from Gdańsk?

We have a corridor from Belarus towards the western countries. The north-south corridor runs to the Czech Republic. There has been a discussion on a new corridor for a few years and now we are at the final stage, I think. It will be an important corridor connected with Slovakia and running to Greece. It will connect a number of countries. There will be two alternative north-south corridors. We are in favour of this as a number of goods will not have to go through Silesia as they do now. This is important due to a high density of railway lines, and hence the train traffic, including freight. Almost 4 million people live in Silesia, which means that the passenger traffic is also large.

With respect to the planned new corridor, I would also like to remind you of the significant project “Podłęże-Piekiełko,” i.e. the construction of a section from Kraków towards Nowy Sącz. We are at the final stage of the design documentation. We have announced tenders for the implementation of the project from Chabówka to Nowy Sącz. In this perspective, we want to implement the study documentation from Nowy Sącz to the border crossing in Muszyna. We can focus on the current course of the corridor or the one running directly to Krynica. Due to the mountainous terrain, we will have to determine which solution is more beneficial. The construction of this corridor is extremely necessary – it would be the direction towards the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Your company is the largest beneficiary of the EU funds in Poland...

Yes. In the previous perspective, we had the most funds of all the rail sector players in Europe. In the current perspective, there has so far been one call for proposals for the CEF Connecting Europe Facility. As much as 41% of the available funds in the national envelope were transferred to Polskie Linie Kolejowe [Polish Railways]. We have well-prepared projects and documentation and we are ready to implement it. We have submitted many projects and the amount exceeded the upper limit. The next call will be announced soon. Again, we will apply for all available funds. We hope for a positive outcome of the call to enable the development of the Polish railways.