Katowice – Gliwice – Poznań Glowny – Wolsztyn – Zbaszynek – Gorzow Wielkopolski – Kostrzyn – Szczecin Glowny

When I was thinking about this part of the trip, a number of different ideas came to mind. I knew that I wanted to end up in Szczecin either tonight or tomorrow morning, and there were a couple of very obvious routes to do this, via Poznań and/or Wrocław, both cities I know, the latter very well. There was also a quite convoluted one which might give me the opportunity to do something unique in Europe – to travel on a scheduled mainline rail service, hauled by steam. Clearly, this was the one to choose.

I’ve wanted to visit the legendary railway museum at Wolsztyn for many years, having first heard about it while doing a driver experience day as a birthday present on the Foxfield Railway. The two crew who led the day were buzzing about this visit they’d just had to a place in Poland where they had been allowed to drive a steam train on the main line, on a timetabled service.

The Wolsztyn Experience as it was known ended a few years ago, but the volunteers have recently brought back mainline steam and on most days in the summer, one scheduled return service is steam hauled. It’s even covered on an Interrail pass, because it is scheduled.

It did however mean an early departure from Katowice, on the 7:30am service to Gliwice. Here I changed for the service to Poznań, where I had a rather lovely and comfortable first class compartment to myself, which was great as this was an almost 4-hour journey.

I passed the time writing working on some updates for a couple of websites that I managed for volunteer organisations, Burslem Port Trust and the LMS Patriot Project.

I did look up as we passed through Wrocław. This is one of my favourite cities and I’ve stayed in the hotel that can be seen from the train more than once. The station itself is lovely but our train pulled to a halt with my carriage outside the main section, unfortunately. Even so I couldn’t resist hopping off for a few seconds.

On reaching Poznań, I changed for the local service to Wolsztyn. This was an hour and a half journey on a stopping train. It was quite busy at first and I didn’t have a seat but got quieter as it went along.

Wolsztyn is well prepared for visitors, despite it only being a small town. There is a visitor centre and they pointed me to the lockers where I could leave my bags, and to the station facilities. There was a sign outside for a special evening steam run, just a few days later.

I walked alongside the railway to the level crossing which gives access to the museum. It’s astonishing to see lines of locos awaiting restoration here. These are in a publicly accessible space, a few hundred yards from the museum. There are more of them on the far side of the tracks.

Inside the museum I was greeted by one of the volunteers who sold me a ticket, which cost the equivalent of £4. He said I could go wherever I wanted to on the site but be careful as stock was being moved around. No site induction, safety boots or hi-viz required. A little bit different to the UK!

Inside the museum I found a plaque referring to the original Wolsztyn Experience and the British man who had founded it.

Inside the engine shed the main operating loco was having its boiler washed out. There had been a huge steam event here last weekend and they were catching up on maintenance, so today’s main line service would be diesel hauled, but with the heritage rolling stock. Never mind, I’ll just have to come back!

I only had just over an hour at the museum before making my way back to the station to catch the heritage service.

The vintage carriages have windows that come down half way and they are predictably relaxed about people leaning out to take photos. For much of the 50 minute journey we were on a single track line. The old carriages were rather fun. I spotted two obvious rail enthusiasts boarding and the rest of the passengers were students on their way home from college.

At Zbaszynek my rail planner suggested that I should return to Poznań. I didn’t fancy that and after consulting OpenRailway Map and the Interrail planner found an alternative route.

The first part of this was on a rather sweet little single-car unit that was rather like a tram. It was also too small for the number of passengers and whilst I got a seat, not everyone was so lucky.

I had a bit of time to wait at the next change, Gorzow Wielkopolski, so stepped outside the station. I immediately spotted a rather odd tramline which will presumably continue though this building at some point. It presently terminates across the road. I presume these trams have reliable brakes!

I found a little shop up the road where I bought some fruit and also a quite delicious homemade rhubarb turnover.

Back on the platform I spotted something I’d forgotten about Polish railway stations, each platform number covers the tracks on both sides. The photo below shows this. Both sides are Per 1 (Platform 1) but they are divided to Tor 1 and Tor 2, then into 4 sectors A to D. It’s not a problem here but you need your wits about you in city centre stations.

The next part of the journey travelled through a mostly rural area. Some of the stations were rather lovely, though in varying states of repair.

The last change of the day was at Kostrzyn. Here I was meeting a service which arrived from Germany, less than a mile away. I arrived at the high level station and departed at the low level.

The arrival into Szczecin is via a rather nice river crossing. There were a few boats about, and I made a note to explore this area at some point while I was here.

It was a bit of a walk to my apartment from the station, so by the time I had been there and walked into the city centre it was going dark. I looked at the area around the castle, near to the river then went on a food hunt.

I’d passed a few places on my way but they were all closed or closing. By now it was almost 10pm and I somewhat reluctantly found myself in KFC, as I couldn’t find anything else. Typically, as I was walking back to my apartment I found an Indian restaurant that was still open. Never mind, it’s still been a super day.