One reader of my Memory Lane musings noted that there may be a silver lining in my being grounded by my mishap in Petersburg so that I am returning home exclusively by bus and train, stopping to sniff the roses in Tallinn, then in Warsaw and now in Berlin. Indeed it is far more educational to look around at ground level than to glance down from 10,000 meters.
Today’s discovery was my 5 hour ride on the Warsaw-Berlin Express train that is operated by the Polish railways in cooperation with Deutsche Bahn. It has upended my thinking about Poland’s infrastructure investments, which was long influenced by my travel to the city of Kielce, midway between Warsaw and Krakow. In the 1980s, when I visited my mother-in-law there with a periodicity of once in several months, I suffered the 4 hour snail’s pace train ride. Travel time did not improve even early in the new millennium, when EU funds were used to purchase gleaming Siemens high speed trains, but no investments were made in the rails, which for large stretches were single track. Especially in light of the EU participation with rolling stock, the Polish situation looked very much like the classic definition of White Elephant projects, which amount to massive corruption and sidetracking of public funds into private pockets.
Whether there was massive corruption or not, the Poles were very, very slow to improve public transportation just as in the 1990s they were exceedingly slow with privatization of state owned enterprises while paying out very fancy fees to mostly American consultancies. At the end of the day, privatization was implemented. Now it seems that after some wasted decades, passenger rail services have all at once been elevated to the general European standards.
I was stunned to see that the Polish High Speed Train, with distinctive tapered nose locomotive, is a Polish train, not a German import. Inside it is not as sleek as what Siemens or Alsthom supply to French, German and other West European countries. But the speed is there; it runs on normal tracks and is not segregated from other traffic; it is quiet inside; there is no vibration or sway. To be sure, the Poles have an advantage in their introduction of such trains: the land is flat, very flat all the way from Warsaw to the German border so that the tracks run straight. There are no tricky turns, that complicated the life of Italy’s train engineers, for example.
I traveled first class, but since there was not a single obvious corporate business chap, only very modest looking passengers under the age of 30, the advantage of the first class premium was that we were at the head of the train and just in front of the dining car, which was a great benefit. I have not seen a dining car like this on any normal European intercity train in thirty years or more. French, Belgian, German intercity trains may dispense prepared sandwiches, potato chips, beer coffee, and not much else. This Polish dining car had an extensive menu of main courses prepared on the spot by a chef. Nearly all of the items were classic Polish cuisine, though for some reason the “Russian pierogi” (stuffed dumplings) were especially in demand. Forget pizza or Greek salads! And so I tucked into a fried pork chop with boiled potatoes and stewed cabbage that cost me…the zloty equivalent of 10 euros. All other dishes and beverages were similarly cheap, which explains why every one of the dozen tables was taken by diners, who very politely ate and left, making space for the next clients rather than diddling on their computer for an hour or more as happens in public spaces on Western trains.
There is not much to say about the countryside I glanced at en route. From Warsaw to Poznan, on both sides of the track the flat terrain was under cultivation. But that is not surprising given Poland’s status as an agricultural powerhouse of Europe. To the west of Poznan all the way to the German border, cultivated land gave way to birch and pine forests. The only noteworthy fact is that Poland has only partially bought into the EU’s Green ideology of sustainable energy. I did not see a single roof top solar panel (in Belgium every self-respecting house owner has bought in) and there were just a half dozen wind turbines visible along the entire route. On the other hand, most of the new buses that I saw on the streets of Warsaw proudly proclaim “I am 100% electric.” They crowd out the older natural gas powered buses which claim to be “pollution free.’
I have spoken above about the Polish TGV on the big intercity routes like Warsaw-Berlin or Warsaw-Krakow. But what about provincial towns like my favorite Kielce? Well, the latest timetables show that Warsaw-Kielce travel time is just 2 hours 10 minutes today. Fast and clearly indicating that the tracks have been vastly improved. But not as fast as the Intercity Expresses: Warsaw-Krakow is twice the distance and travel time is just 2 hours 30 minutes.
In summary, very belatedly but very comprehensively, Poland has invested heavily in public transportation, both at the level of intercity passenger trains and at the level of urban buses. Add to that the entirely new fleet of trams that I saw in Warsaw, all of them, incidentally, home produced: not as sexy as the trams in Brussels, but serviceable and presumably a lot cheaper to purchase and operate given that they are much lighter than ours.
Copyright Gilbert Doctorow, 2026
