The state of Polish railway infrastructure can be described as poor, significantly deviating from the European minimum standards defined in the AGC and AGTC agreements, which Poland has also ratified. Furthermore, its condition is systematically deteriorating, as evidenced by the growing number and total length of sections with speed restrictions.
On January 1, 2000, there were 4,298 such restrictions, covering a length of over 2,500 km, and by 2004, there were almost 6,500 restrictions covering a length of 3,224 km. It is also a fact that until 2002, expenditure on infrastructure was falling. Currently, the situation is improving; however, in 2003, only 853 million PLN was spent on railway infrastructure investments, and a year later, instead of the planned nearly 1.1 billion PLN, less than a billion was spent.
In this situation, in the summer of 2005, “Polska Gazeta Transportowa” initiated a public discussion on the possibility of building a high-speed railway line in Poland. In a short time, it was also picked up by “non-specialist” newspapers, primarily “Rzeczpospolita” and “Gazeta Wyborcza”. From a cursory review of the aforementioned press, where one could even read about the construction of a “Polish TGV”, a certain terminological chaos emerges. Therefore, it is worth starting by clarifying two issues. First: it seems that the best phrasing is a literal translation of the term commonly used in English literature, HST (High Speed Train), or the German Hochgeschwindigkeitzug, or the French TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse), which is simply high-speed rail (in reference to the infrastructure-rolling stock system) or high-speed train (referring exclusively to the rolling stock).
The second issue concerns the question of what speed constitutes the boundary between conventional railways and high-speed railways. It is worth using the definition contained in Directive 96/48 on the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system. It follows that the threshold speed is 200 km/h (although in certain, strictly defined cases, it may be lower, but not lower than 160 km/h), while in countries belonging to the “first league”, trains are operated at speeds of 250 km/h, and usually 300 km/h and higher.
The project included in the National Development Plan for 2007–2013, as well as in the feasibility study prepared by CNTK, assumes connecting Poznań/Wrocław with Łódź and Warsaw via a new railway line allowing trains to travel at a speed of 300 km/h.
However, the question arises: why only 300 km/h, when lines adapted for higher speeds already exist? For example, the line connecting Cologne and Frankfurt, commissioned in 2001, is adapted for speeds of 330 km/h, although the speed is generally limited to 300 km/h. The connection between Madrid and Lleida has been adapted for speeds of 350 km/h, as has the TGV Est Européen line from Paris to Strasbourg, which is currently nearing completion, although in the first phase, trains will be able to travel at a maximum of 320 km/h. Also, Japan’s JR East recently announced very concrete plans to increase train operating speeds from 300 to 350 km/h. In 2005, the Koreans conducted very successful tests of their new train and plan to increase the scheduled speed on the Seoul-Busan line to 350 km/h in the near future.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” No. 2/2006.