And in Polish railway bullshit, I keep finding new kinds of substandard timetables - like here in Żulin (I feel like I shouldn't find the name funny :/), a formerly full-blown station where the last train from Lublin was moved earlier this #RailwayNewYear and now departs 15:54 for a 16:40 departure onwards from there. After that, there's another Regio pair (and another train north on weekends and another IC south, but that wouldn't stop here no matter what) which passes this and one other halt nearby which is NOT a demand stop, but starts stopping everywhere from Krasnystaw.

#Lubelskie #Polregio #PKP #PLK #Kolej #RozkładJazdy #Timetable #RegionalRail

So, as I imagine is becoming a regular #RailwayNewYear activity for me, I am Takt hunting. Which is to say, I'm trawling #PLK timetables to see how well #PKPIC's boasts of the increasing number of Takt relations are reflected in the actual timings (having realized that expanding to something similar to https://mastodon.com.pl/@HaTetsu/115142221091238924 would be rather too time-consuming right now). The south is currently rather disrupted by the twin worksites at Katowice station and Kraków-Kozłów, but getting into the 200s, we have our first result!
The (Białystok-)Warsaw-Łódź-Wrocław relation, also known as line P15 in the 2035 network draft, is now almost fully 2h Takt until Ostrów Wielkopolski! (EDIT: In the other direction, there's equal spacing from Wrocław until the 3pm train, at which point things get somewhat messed up and only get evened out around Sieradz) Getting equal spacing on the Ostrów-Wrocław leg has proven beyond PLK's ability at this time, which is understandable - a single-track section, further encumbered due to an ongoing closure on its twin running via Międzybórz Sycowski and, of course, the Gordian knot of the three-track western approach to Wrocław Główny where traffic from seven directions has to fit all work against the planners.

1/x

#Fahrplan2026 #Timetable2026 #TaktHunting #PolskiTakt #kolej #PKP #rail #bahnbubble

In other #RailwayNewYear news, it does indeed look like pretty much all Poland-Vienna ECs have been extended from Hbf to Westbahnhof

#PKPIC #rail #Fahrplan2026 #Timetable2026 #kolej

Apparently people are reporting on SkyscraperCity that ECs from Berlin aren't stopping in Frankfurt (Oder) Oderbrücke for the system change anymore

#RailwayNewYear #Fahrplan2026 #bahnbubble #DB #PKPIC #PKP #CrossBorderRail

I'm only now really going through the PLK tables (got work, rest and that other project that turns out just doesn't wanna wait xp) and holy, somehow I'd missed the news about EuroNight Carpatia, a Przemyśl-Prague/Budapest/Munich via Vienna night train (Czech couchette in the Prague part, Polish sleeper to Budapest, Polish both to Munich).

Running a *second* night train Kraków-Vienna-Munich is certainly a choice, especially since from what I recall these can't serve Vienna very well as they have to traverse the Westbahn at night to not get into the way of RJXs. Better than dealing with DB for more than absolutely necessary, I guess.

More interesting is that they decided to have it pull into Kędzierzyn-Koźle and do a runaround with the loco instead of using the perfectly cromulent connecting curve that ought to be available there

#RailwayNewYear #Fahrplan2026 #Timetable2026 #PKP #PKPIC #ČD #NightTrain #rail #kolej #CrossBorderRail #bahnbubble

ICYMI, With 1 December, the GSM-R rollout in Poland is set to finally start - the day will mark the start of trial use of GSM-R on the Warsaw-Gdynia, Warsaw-just before Poznań, just past Warsaw-Łódź and Skierniewice-Łowicz mainlines, to be "operationally deployed" (made mandatory, I guess?) on #RailwayNewYear. In March, just past Warsaw/Skierniewice-Łuków-Terespol, Poznań-Kunowice (DE border), Opole-Wrocław-Węgliniec-Bielawa Dolna (DE border) to follow.

Of those, Warsaw-Gdynia, Warsaw-Łódź and Opole-Wrocław-Legnica already have ETCS up going by OpenRailwayMap

https://www.rynek-kolejowy.pl/wiadomosci/pkp-plk-od-grudnia-rusza-gsmr-na-wybranych-liniach-125652.html

#kolej #rail #pkp #gsmr

Meanwhile in Poland's open access revolution: RegioJet finds out the hard way that when they tell you that you can only expect PKP PLK timetables to be final two weeks before entry into force, they kinda mean it - no promised ticket sales from November 4 after all: https://www.rynek-kolejowy.pl/wiadomosci/nie-znaleziono-polaczenia-co-ze-sprzedaza-biletow-regiojet-125418.html

#kolej #pkp #pkpplk #OpenAccess #RegioJet #RailwayNewYear

Welp, unhappy news for walk-up railway proponents and #Interrail users: ČD is expanding compulsory reservation to all trains it operates as part of line Ex1 between Prague and Ostrava from #RailwayNewYear - that means all EC and IC trains running that route will require reservations in addition to the SuperCity Pendolino trains that already did.
ČD have emphasized that reservations will remain optional on all trains running on PSO contracts - that means trains like the Púchov-bound Valašský Expres ECs (with a change in Hranice) or the Slovacký Expres rychlík trains (with a change in Přerov) remain booking-free options (note that the change was not applied in draft timetables you can get from the Správa Železnic, so you can't see which trains are affected at a glance yet, but the press release explicitly mentions trains like the Silesia to Poland are affected - which will be kind of funny as that should create a tiny comp res-free section Ostrava-Bohumín there).

Of course, the thing they emphasize more is that seat reservations on SuperCities will now be cheaper to match the newly squared-R trains - from 70 (source: seat61) to 35 CZK. They seem to have already dropped the price as of today on cd.cz, at least, despite the wording of the announcement suggesting it would only apply from the change.

https://www.ceskedrahy.cz/tiskove-centrum/tiskove-zpravy/ceske-drahy-spustily-predprodej-jizdenek-na-jizdni-rad-2026 (via Rynek Kolejowy)

(cc @interrailinfosvenska @jon)

#ČeskéDráhy #CD #rail #CompulsoryReservation