A country the size of Poland needs efficient transport system. Fast development of roads causes that rising of railway services standards is a necessity. Speed of 160 km/h is not sufficient at distances of more than 300 kilometres. For rising competitiveness of railway transport against roads in Poland, building of high speed lines on the main routes is necessary. Obviously it is a costly and impossible project to be developed without support from state/European budget. PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe, the railway infrastructure manager in Poland has prepared plan of implementation of high speed lines construction.
The transit role of Poland in Europe – Asia operations system derives mainly from its localisation on the East – West axis. Operations increase on the Eastern border is one of the PKP PLK priorities.
One of the international freight corridors created by PKP PLK – a Central East -West Corridor – ends on the Polish – Belarusian border, which is an external EU border. It is an important step into wider rail integration with countries eastward of the EU border, towards Asia.
The main purpose of Corridor Baltic – Adriatic is to give access to the shortest route to or from the Baltic Sea Region and the main line of continental transit, effectively linking the EU Member States with partners from the Mediterranean, the Balkans, Africa and the Far East, on the other side of the Baltic Sea and North Sea.
In December 2014, Polish state-owned rail infrastructure management company PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe has awarded a PLN 2.3-million (EUR 552 thousands) contract to Spain-based engineering company Ingenieria Idom to undertake feasibility studies for possible extensions of the proposed Y-shaped high-speed rail (HSR) network from Warszawa through Lódz to Poznan and Wroclaw. The study will focus on extending the line to Germany and the Czech Republic by either modernising existing routes or constructing new alignments. Nine potential corridors are to be studied, with a proposed design speed of 200 to 350 km/h. Plans to build a Y-shaped line from Warszawa through Lódz to Poznan and Wroclaw have remained postponed since December 2011, when the government halted the project. Completion of this first phase is not envisaged until 2030 at the earliest.
New projects evaluated at EUR 12 billion
One of the largest projects is the modernisation of the railway linking Lower Silesia to Szczecin, on the Baltic coast. Other projects will be developed in Warsaw, where Zachodnia railway station would be reconstructed, the infrastructure modernised, as well as three more rail stations: the Central station, the East station and Gdansk station.
Polish Railways aims to invest PLN 50 Billion (EUR 12 Billion) over the next six years on modernising rail lines and platforms, PKP PLK Chairman Remigiusz Paszkiewicz said. About PLN 40 Billion (EUR 9.6 Billion) will come from EU funds, a chief priority being to improve the infrastructure for freight trains. At present, freight trains in Poland rarely exceed 30 km per hour. Paszkiewicz said that owing to the new investments, freight trains will be able to travel as fast as 120 km per hour in some places. “Over the last 10 years we have managed to modernise over 5,000 km of tracks, of which more than half was done in 2012-2013,” he said.
Poland will also upgrade an important railway with funds from the European Union, ensured through the TEN-T Programme. The railway included in the modernisation and reconstruction programme is part of the Gdañsk–Warszawa–Brno/Bratislava-Wien axis.
This railway axis, Gdañsk–Warszawa–Brno/Bratislava-Wien, mainly involves modernisation and upgrading of the rail route – part of the former pan-European transport corridor which connects Gdańsk via Katowice and Žilina to Bratislava and through a western branch via Brno to Vienna.
The corridor was identified as a multimodal north-south axis to create a complex multimodal transport system for goods and passengers with the port of Gdańsk, rail and roads. The railway axis crosses four member states: Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovakia. Its western branch passes through Brno, the second largest city of the Czech Republic, while its eastern branch passes through Žilina, a city of growing importance in Slovakia, to the country’s capital Bratislava. The modernisation of the rail lines and the construction of container terminals for example at Gdańsk and Sławków/Katowice should generate better conditions for the development of effective intermodal transport. The modernisation of this railway section will contribute to increasing the capacity of the railway line in a densely populated area of Poland. The total cost of the project is EUR 2.7 Million and the financing provided through TEN-T amounts to EUR 1.4 Million.
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