two trips to Poland, Krakow and Gdansk

[long island jack]

over the last month i had two trips to Poland first was to Krakow, beautiful place, managed a couple of hours on the main station

 

    

 

 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by long island jack

[long island jack]

Next place was Gdansk, another beautiful place 

[ModRXsouth]

Great photos - I want to visit Poland as your shots illustrate the variety of rolling stock. Which city did you prefer, and which was the busier rail location? Did you have to wait long for the freight trains at Gdańsk? Any restrictions on photography at the stations? Any details will help with planning a trip to Poland - thank you!

[long island jack]

No freight at Krakow, freight line by pass the station, a few freight through Gdansk station, but once the sun move around killed most photos, there's a better location a few station south of Gdansk, where you get the freight of the docks, also both places have a large tram system. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqs09J6bPPc

We stayed in the Craft beer central hotel, right next to station, has it's own brewery and you can see the freight at night going through the station while having a beer, best of both worlds!!

https://centralhotelgdansk.pl/

Edited September 20, 2023 by long island jack

[long island jack]

Trams at Krakow

[long island jack]

Trams at Gdansk

 

[ModRXsouth]

Thank you for rapid reply! 
Any places you would recommend to visit in Krakow or Gdańsk? Any excursions from either city and was it easy to buy tickets?

[Johann Marsbar]

53 minutes ago, ModRXsouth said:

Great photos - I want to visit Poland as your shots illustrate the variety of rolling stock. Which city did you prefer, and which was the busier rail location? Did you have to wait long for the freight trains at Gdańsk? Any restrictions on photography at the stations? Any details will help with planning a trip to Poland - thank you!

 

A lot of the major Polish Cities have freight avoiding lines that mean that very little passes through the main stations - if any at all.

 

If you lurk at somewhere like Wroclaw Nadodrze.....

 

 

Poznan Staroreka.....

 

 

or even Myslowice (near Katowice).....

 

 

...which are all easy to get to locations on Public Transport (trams or trains in all cases), I've found them to be resonably busy locations.

The likes of Warsaw are more of a problem as a lot of the east-west freight runs well to the south of the City through Gora Kalwaria - the only place I've been to in Poland where I've got off the train - looked at the clientelle loitering in the vicinity - and got straight back on the train again!.

[long island jack]

loads of place to look at in both cities, Krakow we did the trip to Auschwitz and the salt mines, we pre booked with our travel agent. Gdansk we took the train to Hel and back and just walked around, all depends how long your stay will be.

[fulton]

Lots of nice places in Poland, I think generally you feel safer than in the UK, but obviously there are bad areas to avoid, this years holiday was driving to Swinoujscie on the Baltic coast, some years ago we travelled, by train, to Bielsko-Biala, in the south of Poland, started our trip in Hamburg, changing trains in Katowice, not a city to recommend, at that time lots of EU investment in roads and railways, we did a couple of train trips to Zywiec and Cieszyn on the Czechia border. One day we took a walk to the next town, planning to take the train back, did not look too promising, track overgrown, platform was also, with a timetable on the one lamp post, anyway the train did come, the driver and guard looking very surprised, to see passengers, we had a hand written ticket back to Bielsko-Biala.

[SM42]

If you're in Gdansk a trip out to Tczew ( about 30 mins away)  will get you a bit more freight action. 

 

Further south Inowroclaw is pretty good too. 

 

Poznan ( my second home) is reasonably good for freight traffic,  but the main station is not. 

 

Luckily you don't have to go too far to see freight though. 

 

Koblnica, or Gadki are only a few stops out and offer a reasonable chance of freight action. Gadki more so as there is a container yard there. 

 

Oborniki is a bit further away but has an oil terminal by the station. 

 

Franowo is the main yard in Poznan on the avoiding line and reachable by tram from the city as is Starolenka mentioned above ( No 17 tram)

 

At the moment photography is OK but that may be changing and people are a little more suspicious nowadays given the war raging next door. 

 

Steam is still running out of Wolszryn ( to Poznan on Saturdays and Leszno in the week, providing there is a  loco available)

 

Generally  whichever of the bigger cities you end up in getting to the outskirts will get you more chance of freight. 

 

Google maps can provide hours of fun in researching possible locations.

 

@ModRXsouth if you do go, I don't think you will be disappointed. Rail travel and public transport in generally is relatively cheap as is food and wherever you go there is a lot of non railway history to discover too 

 

As far as the security situation goes, for the time being, I would suggest being mindful of what you are pointing the camera at.  Things like docks, oil depots and the like might draw some unwanted attention. 

The fact it is all visible on Google may not make much of an argument

 

Have fun and don't forget to post some photos 

 

Andy

[ModRXsouth]

Thank you Long Island Jack, Johann Marsbar, Fulton and SM42/Andy for your replies. Looks like Gdańsk and Poznan are worth investigating for visits with freight content, ideally based on flights from Gatwick or Heathrow.
Also, are there any large model railway shows in Poland, or sources of such information? 

[SM42]

There's an annual Hobby show in Poznan every year in the exhibition halls across the road from  Poznan Glowny station. 

 

This year I think it's on 18 - 19 November. 

 

It has some model railway content along with other hobbies. 

 

Tickets normally around a fiver (IIRC) but also gets you into any other show on at the same time. 

 

Andy

[Nick C]

On 20/09/2023 at 16:09, ModRXsouth said:

Thank you for rapid reply! 
Any places you would recommend to visit in Krakow or Gdańsk? Any excursions from either city and was it easy to buy tickets?

As @long island jack says, there's a lot to do in both cities. I've been to Krakow several times now and there's still plenty of places on my 'to do' list.

 

The Transport museum is good, but do check in advance as the first time we went the tram hall was closed. I've not done the aircraft museum yet but I'm told it's also worthwhile.

 

Auschwitz and the salt mines at Wieliczka are both essentials, for very different reasons - I would recommend allowing a day for each to do them properly, not the organised tours that do them both in one day. You can get either a bus or train to Oświęcim and buy tickets for Auschwitz on the gate (though at busy times it's better to book in advance), but by the end of it you'll be too harrowed to focus on anything else. Wieliczka is a short train ride away (the same train as the airport, but in the opposite direction) and there are two different tours available, the 'tourist' one that does the salt cathedral and the 'miners' tour that's a bit more in-depth. The tourist tour also includes an optional museum tour at the end (still underground), we were the only ones to take it up on our trip and so had a private guided tour!

 

If you've got a bit more time, there's an open-air railway museum at Chabowka - but that's a good couple of hours by train (through some incredible scenery) or less by bus up the main road. During the summer holdais they also offer some steam services as well.

 

Train tickets are easy to by as the machines have an English button, or for the intercities you can buy online in advance. You buy for a particular train. Tram/bus tickets are available from machines on many tram stops, or from any of the various newspaper kiosks dotted around. They're valid for a certain time and have to be validated on boarding the tram (or first one, for the longer tickets) - Krakow does useful 48 or 72 hour ones, for some reason Gdansk doesn't.

 

In Gdansk, as well as Hel there is also the Westerplatte peninsula (where WWII began), only accessible by road. The WWII museum in the city recommends you allow all day - we've had two full days there so far and still only got 2/3 of the way round... Up the coast in Gdynia there is also the museum ship ORP Błyskawica, built in Cowes IOW.

[SM42]

That's a very good summary of some of the attractions and museums in those two fine cities

As mentioned Krakow has lots to do and warrants several days at least before you even add in the railway stuff. 

 

One other thing to consider is that some museums are free on some days, mainly Monday or Tuesday. 

 

The tank museum in Poznan is free on Tuesday for instance as I believe is the Stalag Luft III museum near Zagan. 

 

There an awful lot of history to be discovered and the scenery can be quite good too. 

 

Andy

Who might be a little biased

[Johann Marsbar]

The air museum in Krakow has several very rare WW1 aircraft that were originally in the Berlin Aviation Museum until the early 1940's when they were packed into railway wagons and shipped out of Berlin to be safe from Allied air raids.  At the end of the war they were discovered on what had become Polish territory and ended up in the Krakow museum.  I don't think they ever found the wings for most of them though......

 

 

 

[SM42]

On 29/09/2023 at 18:49, Johann Marsbar said:

The air museum in Krakow has several very rare WW1 aircraft that were originally in the Berlin Aviation Museum until the early 1940's when they were packed into railway wagons and shipped out of Berlin to be safe from Allied air raids.  At the end of the war they were discovered on what had become Polish territory and ended up in the Krakow museum.  I don't think they ever found the wings for most of them though......

 

 

 

 

And free entry on Tuesdays it seems ( wstep wolny)

 

Andy

Edited October 5, 2023 by SM42