page_title: Transport in Poland
section_title: Rail transport
hierarchical_section_title: Transport in Poland / Rail transport
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Hauptbahnhof Danzig, Gdańsk Główny, von der Marienkirche aus gesehen.
context_page_description: Transport in Poland involves air, water, road and rail transportation. The country has a large network of municipal public transport, such as buses, trams and the metro. As a country located at the 'cross-roads' of Europe, Poland, with its highly developed economy, is a nation with a large and increasingly modern network of transport infrastructure.
  The country's most important waterway is the Vistula river. The largest seaports are the Port of Gdańsk, the Port of Gdynia and the Port of Szczecin. Air travel is generally used for international travel, with many flights originating at Warsaw Chopin Airport. Railways connect all of Poland's major cities and the state-owned Polish State Railways corporation, through its subsidiaries, runs a great number of domestic and international services of varying speed and comfort. In addition to this, five out of sixteen Polish voivodeships have their own provincial rail service providers.
context_section_description: Poland is served by an extensive network of railways. In most cities the main railway station  is located near a city centre and is well connected to the local transportation system. The infrastructure is operated by PKP Group. The rail network is very dense in western and northern Poland, while eastern part of the country is less developed. The capital city, Warsaw, has the country's only rapid transit system: the Warsaw Metro.
  The only high-speed rail line (though by most definitions, real high-speed rail only includes speeds over 200 km/h) in central-eastern Europe is the Central Rail Line (Poland), Centralna Magistrala Kolejowa (CMK). It has a length of 223 km (139 mi), and was built in 1971–1977; it links Warsaw with Kraków and Katowice. Most trains on the CMK operate at speeds up to 160 km/h (99 mph), but since December 2014 new Alstom Pendolino ED250 trains operate on a 90 km section of the CMK at 200 km/h (124 mph), and improvements under way should raise the authorized speed to 200 km/h (124 mph) on most of the line. In test runs on the CMK in November 2013 a new Pendolino ED250 train set a new Polish speed record of 293 km/h (182 mph).
  Other high-speed lines:
  The Warsaw-Gdańsk-Gdynia railway route is undergoing a major upgrading costing $3 billion, partly funded by the European Investment Bank, including track replacement, realignment of curves and relocation of sections of track to allow speeds up to 200 km/h (124 mph), modernization of stations, and installation of the most modern ETCS signalling system, which is to be completed in June 2015. In December 2014 new Alstom Pendolino ED250 high-speed trains were put into service between Gdańsk, Warsaw, Katowice and Kraków reducing the rail travel time from Gdańsk to Warsaw to 2 hours 58 minutes, to be reduced in late 2015 to 2 hours 37 minutes.
  Warsaw–Kutno–Poznań–(Berlin) (160 km/h)
  Warsaw–Siedlce–Terespol–(Minsk) (160,  120 km/h) – being upgraded to 160 km/h
  Warsaw–Puławy–Lublin (120, 140 km/h)
  Opole–Wrocław (160 km/h) and further upgraded via Legnica to Berlin and Hamburg
  Projects
  The Warsaw–Łódź line is being upgraded to allow speed up to 160 km/h (in order to bind together the Warsaw–Łódź agglomeration).
  Plans were made to construct a new high-speed line (350 km/h) from Warsaw to Poznań and Wrocław with forks in Łódź and Kalisz., but the project was cancelled in November 2011 due to its high cost.
  The PKP Group is the fourth largest railway throughout Europe. Trains are run by its different subsidiaries.
caption: Gdańsk Main Station, one of Poland's most important railway terminals
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