The 1948 Show: Saving the Best till Last

Memories of travels in Eastern Europe, where it was always 1948

The previous post saw us in Leszno combining entertainment, black market currency deals and political discussion!

Day 7 Wednesday 25th April 1984 
Despite last night's excitement we were up and about early yet again to board the 07.50 train from Leszno to Wolstyn, which according to our information should have been steam-hauled but which turned out to be diesel.  We hadn't had time for breakfast, or perhaps our hotel had been unable to provide any, so we went looking for - and found - some on arrival: garlic sausage rolls and Pepsi-Cola from the station buffet!

We had come to Wolstyn because it was a centre of Polish Railways steam operation, with a large steam loco shed, complete with a roundhouse and turntable, that housed a large number of steam locomotives.  At the time of our visit it would have been about 90 years old but still largely in original condition. Amazingly it is still in use today, where a rather smaller number of steam locos are still in use on selected local trains as a tourist attraction. Rail enthusiasts flock from all over the world to see, ride behind, and even drive the locos, but I'm glad that we saw it when it was just an everyday part of the railway.

First Highlight of the Day

The first, and what I'd expected to be the only, highlight of the day was a tour of the shed. To do this we first had to speak to the shedmaster. Negotiations were conducted in a mixture of Polish, English and sign-language. Things nearly went wrong at an early stage when, seeing that he had noticed our cameras, I misinterpreted his question as "Would you like to take some photographs?" and began smiling and nodding. His demeanour suddenly changed and he looked agitated and annoyed and I realised that what he must have said was "Have you already taken some?"!

Once we'd got over that little difficulty, negotiations proceeded more smoothly, helped no doubt by the offer of a  packet of 20 Marlboro that Mark had brought along for the purpose. However, it still required a phone call to someone in higher authority before permission was granted. The shedmaster then accompanied us on a guided tour of the shed and, as long as we checked with him first, we were free to photograph as we pleased. (The diary doesn't record it, but we must have found some more film from somewhere).

Steam locomotives disappeared from the UK's railways in 1968 and the last really big steam sheds closed before then, so this was almost time travel as far as we were concerned. Because of the more generous loading guage, Polish locomotives were larger and grander in every respect than their British counterparts as some of these photos may show.

A class OL49 emerging from the roundhouse

Using the turntable to connect to the correct track

Ready for the road

After the tour we returned to the station, seeing four steam-hauled passenger trains pass through in just half-an-hour.  We left Wolstyn on the 11.02 to  Poznan, which we rode as far as Grodzisk, changing there to a train to Opalenica. A twenty-minute ride behind another steam loco that cost us, at our rate of exchange, just 1p each.

Another OL49 on a passenger train near Opalenica

The Real Highlight

If I'd thought Wolstyn loco depot was the highlight of the trip I was to change my mind on arrival at Opalenica. What we found there couldn't have been more different from the scenes at Wolstyn shed, but it was even more "time travel" or, perhaps, a parallel universe that awaited us there.

Opalenica, on the main line between Warsaw and Berlin, was the junction for a network of narrow-guage steam lines running to the north and west. Mark had spent many weeks poring over maps and timetables to plan the trip. The fact that he worked for British Rail and had a contact in the International Travel section must have helped, but even he had been unable to find details of the passenger service on these lines, so we just had to make it up as we went along.

On arrival at Opalenica we found we had an hour to wait before the narrow-guage train departed. We duly set about taking photographs, but Mark was approached by a little old lady who started berating him for doing so. At this point his patience snapped and he told her that he didn't understand a word she was saying and would she please go away and leave him in peace!  Which she duly did!

The line also carried freight, I think to and from a large sugar refinery, and the train we travelled in was one known in railway terminology as a "mixed train" with passenger carriages and freight wagons together. The freight wagons were large, standard guage ones loaded on to narrow-guage transporters.They made a curious sight with the wagons towering above the diminutive locos.

Freight on the narrow guage

While we were overcome with the novelty of the experience, the rest of passengers in the nearly full train just sat around chatting and playing cards and ignoring it all as they no doubt did every day. The train progressed to a station called Trzcianka Zachodnia ("try saying that after a few pints" as Mark said). This was a junction with another narrow-guage line and we were treated to the spectacle of no fewer than three narrow-gauge  trains, two passenger and a freight, side-by-side at a station that appeared to be in the middle of nowhere.

Three narrow guage steam passenger trains at Trzcianka Zachodnia.

There are more images of this system on this link.  Mark decided he wanted one last shot of our train pulling out, so he stood and photographed it leaving, then ran after it and jumped on!

It wasn't just the trains that seemed to suggest we had travelled through some sort of time warp. Some of the views through the windows told the same story - of people working in the fields and horse-drawn traffic on the roads.

View from the train (1)

View from the train (2)

This system has now completely disappeared, but you can read a summary of its decline and the attempts to save it, on this link. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon meandering slowly through the Polish countryside.  At one station we were met by a postman, who transferred a mailbag from his bike onto the train. He then cadged a free lift by holding on to the handrail of the last coach and being wheeled along by the train, as no doubt he did every day.

The postman and his bike hitching a ride.

Eventually we ended up back on the main line at a station called Nowy Tomysl. The first sight that greeted us on the main line  was three differntly-uniformed officials patrolling the platform, but thankfully we had put our cameras away, otherwise all the above photos might have been lost! From there we caught a train westwards to Rzepin. This was the end of our last day in Poland, but we still had some more travelling ahead of us. We fortified ourselves with a meal in the station buffet, although the diary records that "we just missed the last of the soup". Later, we boarded the "Relief Ost-West Express", with its through sleeping cars from Moscow and headed for the fleshpots of West Berlin!

to be concluded...