A recent brief rail-centred visit to Poland proved in some respects, depressing for me; i.e., its being hard to avoid getting the impression that those now in charge of railway matters in Poland are intent on, in various aspects, making rail passenger travel there as difficult to handle / inconvenient / disagreeable, as possible.
There would seem to be a drive -- at least in the "mid-west" area of Poland around Poznan and Wolsztyn, visited in my recent trip -- to make railway stations, including those of some importance, as bleakly "basic" as possible as regards the requirements of passengers: ticket-booking window(s), toilets, and a small, grudging amount of waiting-room space -- no more, not even a money-in-the-slot coffee machine. This was the case at Wolsztyn (surely, with that location's steam operations, a potential visitor-magnet / showplace) -- which I remember as having had a quarter of a century ago, a fine station buffet; likewise at Zbaszynek -- while at only a small town, a prominent (even in these days) passenger junction: at Zbaszynek station, the sad sight of the row of "icons" for facilities -- over the subway between platforms -- having its "wine-glass = buffet" one with a diagonal "cancellation" red cross marked over it. The degree of facilities-abolition varies a little: Gorzow Wlkp. station had a small and rather pitiful "snacks-and-coffee-shop", with four or five spaces in a row at a counter (adjacent and open to the chilly station lobby) where one could sit and drink one's coffee. Largely, though, one was tempted to suspicions of a deliberate campaign re matters other than of actual trains, to drive potential passengers away.
Another negative aspect of present-day train travel in Poland: minimal information facilities re train movements, other than that obtainable via the Internet. Bad news for "dinosaurs" like me, with only a computer at own desk at home in Britain; and, part of an apparent trend worldwide -- but in Poland, apparently taken to a most extreme degree. Station information offices re rail travel / workings, staffed by human dispensers of info, seem to be no more -- even at huge and important, and otherwise still quite generously appointed, Poznan Glowny station. Literally the only train-movement information readily available on the spot, to the travelling public, is on posted arrival-and-departures material at, and concerning, the station on which one finds oneself -- "paper" posters re same, or electronic info-panels. I encountered, for sure, absolutely no local timetable leaflets placed where people might take them; though did observe one fellow-passenger on a main-line local working south of Poznan, reading an item in his hand which was fairly clearly a timetable leaflet -- but how does one get such things?
I had a wish to travel, one day, between Wolsztyn and Gorzow Wlkp. and return -- involving two local workings in each direction, changing at Zbaszynek. Wolsztyn -- Zbaszynek times could be got from the posted-up departures / arrivals schedules at Wolsztyn; but getting, at that location, Zbaszynek -- Gorzow Wlkp. times, was a poser -- especially as my Polish is minimal. I was lucky enough to get "speech" with a bright and helpful booking clerk at Wolsztyn, who responded -- in between selling tickets to "real people" -- to a written-out sheet which I presented to her, requesting all train times between Zbaszynek and Gorzow W: she looked the times up on her computer, and wrote them down for me. It would seem that a non-Polish-speaker confronted with a less kind, patient and co-operative railway employee, would likely not have fared well. Customer-friendly as regards rail travel matters, present-day Poland seemingly is not.
There would seem to be a drive -- at least in the "mid-west" area of Poland around Poznan and Wolsztyn, visited in my recent trip -- to make railway stations, including those of some importance, as bleakly "basic" as possible as regards the requirements of passengers: ticket-booking window(s), toilets, and a small, grudging amount of waiting-room space -- no more, not even a money-in-the-slot coffee machine. This was the case at Wolsztyn (surely, with that location's steam operations, a potential visitor-magnet / showplace) -- which I remember as having had a quarter of a century ago, a fine station buffet; likewise at Zbaszynek -- while at only a small town, a prominent (even in these days) passenger junction: at Zbaszynek station, the sad sight of the row of "icons" for facilities -- over the subway between platforms -- having its "wine-glass = buffet" one with a diagonal "cancellation" red cross marked over it. The degree of facilities-abolition varies a little: Gorzow Wlkp. station had a small and rather pitiful "snacks-and-coffee-shop", with four or five spaces in a row at a counter (adjacent and open to the chilly station lobby) where one could sit and drink one's coffee. Largely, though, one was tempted to suspicions of a deliberate campaign re matters other than of actual trains, to drive potential passengers away.
Another negative aspect of present-day train travel in Poland: minimal information facilities re train movements, other than that obtainable via the Internet. Bad news for "dinosaurs" like me, with only a computer at own desk at home in Britain; and, part of an apparent trend worldwide -- but in Poland, apparently taken to a most extreme degree. Station information offices re rail travel / workings, staffed by human dispensers of info, seem to be no more -- even at huge and important, and otherwise still quite generously appointed, Poznan Glowny station. Literally the only train-movement information readily available on the spot, to the travelling public, is on posted arrival-and-departures material at, and concerning, the station on which one finds oneself -- "paper" posters re same, or electronic info-panels. I encountered, for sure, absolutely no local timetable leaflets placed where people might take them; though did observe one fellow-passenger on a main-line local working south of Poznan, reading an item in his hand which was fairly clearly a timetable leaflet -- but how does one get such things?
I had a wish to travel, one day, between Wolsztyn and Gorzow Wlkp. and return -- involving two local workings in each direction, changing at Zbaszynek. Wolsztyn -- Zbaszynek times could be got from the posted-up departures / arrivals schedules at Wolsztyn; but getting, at that location, Zbaszynek -- Gorzow Wlkp. times, was a poser -- especially as my Polish is minimal. I was lucky enough to get "speech" with a bright and helpful booking clerk at Wolsztyn, who responded -- in between selling tickets to "real people" -- to a written-out sheet which I presented to her, requesting all train times between Zbaszynek and Gorzow W: she looked the times up on her computer, and wrote them down for me. It would seem that a non-Polish-speaker confronted with a less kind, patient and co-operative railway employee, would likely not have fared well. Customer-friendly as regards rail travel matters, present-day Poland seemingly is not.