Return to Trczianka Zachodnia

Thursday, 18th April 1985

One of the highlights of the previous year's trip had been the narrow-gauge system linking Nowy Tomyśl and Opalenica. These towns were linked more directly by the Berlin - Moscow main line, but the narrow gauge followed a meandering route to the north, making a junction at the obscure village of Trczianka Zachnodnia with a line to the slightly bigger settlement at Lwówek. Mark and I were keen to visit the system again, but first we had to get to Nowy Tomyśl.

Mark's original plan had us starting the day in Leszno, the town in which he and I had enjoyed a memorable night out in 1984 (read again here). Fortunately, he had planned a very late start (for us) so we had plenty of time to get back on schedule, catching the 0918 from Wrocław for the 96km journey north.

Changing trains at Leszno, we spent the next hour-and-three-quarters on a meandering cross-country line to Zbąszyń, arriving on time at 1322. We weren't expecting thhis to be a steam-hauled train and I can't remember whether it was or not, but at one wayside station along the line we passed this one coming the other way. 

Somewhere between Leszno and Zbąszyń,

At Zbąszyń, we were only 17km from Nowy Tomyśl, just one station along the main line. We had no PKP timetable, but we did know from the notes we had courtesy of previous visitors that there was a train from Nowy Tomyśl to  Trczianka Zachnodnia at 14.40. It was now 13.22 so the journey shouldn't have proved too difficult, but - there was no suitable train!

I think Mark had anticipated this and the Plan had one of his "bus, taxi or hitch" notes for this leg. We had no bus timetable either, but there was sufficient information at Zbąszyń station to enable us to work out that there was a bus leaving at 13.59, which would still give us 40  minutes to catch our narrow-gauge train. What the information at the station didn't give us was the arrival time of the bus at Nowy Tomyśl so we enjoyed an increasingly nail-biting ride until our arrival in the town centre at 14.30, where we realised that the railway station was out-of-town and we had no idea where it was!

Someone had the idea of asking the driver of one of a long line of taxis drawn up outside the bus station for directions.  He was happy to help, but the explantion, in Polish naturally, seemed long and complicated. I was brought up to think of taxis as an incredible luxury that should only be indulged in at times of extreme emergency, but I suddenly remembered that we were now beneficiaries of the Magic Money Tree of Wrocław! (see yesterday's post).  The driver was happy to take us and charged us the princely sum of 40 zlotys, there being 163 to the £ at the "official rate" and who knows how many at the rate given by our friend outside the Hotel Monopol! We got to the station with three minutes to spare.

This might explain why, when we clearly intended to travel all the way to Lwówek, we only had tickets to Brody, an insignificant halt part way along the line, but it's a wonder we managed to get any sort of ticket at all in that time.

A ticket to Brody

Brody Halt. Why did we buy tickets to here?!

The scene at Trczianka Zachodnia was as fascinating as ever, with three narrow-guage steam-hauled trains drawn up alongside each other in the middle of nowhere in a seemingly timeless picture of rural Polish life. Little did we know then the changes that were soon to come to Eastern Europe that would sweep away scenes like this for ever. A few years later, diesels took over and within not much more than ten years all these lines were closed.

Interchange at Trczianka Zachodnia - and a western gricer (Mark!)

No restrictions on photography on the narrow gauge, but a good job we read the point settings correctly!)

After witnessing this feast of steam we set off along the last section of the line to Lwówek.

On the way to Lwówek

It seems that on arrival at Lwówek we bought tickets to Opalenica.  This would have made sense, trains did run between the two stations and Opalenica was on the line to Poznan, where we  now needed to be.

But we didn't use them!  Mark's planned itinerary is no help - it merely says that on arrival at  Lwówek we should "make our way to Poznan".  We had to be in Poznan by 20.30. It was only 16.59 when we arrived at Lwówek which seems like plenty of time, even at the speed narrow-gauge trains go at, but perhaps we had managed to work out - after buying the tickets - that we might not get there in time after all.
For whatever reason, we went by bus - after, that is, we had found the bus stop and worked out how to read the timetable!

Mark getting to grips with a PKS timetable.

We reached Poznan with over an hour to spare, which was just as well as our Polish visas allowed us to spend only two nights in Poland and we needed to catch the overnight train back to the DDR. Even if we did, we might still have been committing a technical infringement as the train was not due to cross the border until after midnight!

To be continued.