Scheduled daily steam services have resumed at Wolsztyn in Western Poland after a pause in operations during late April to prepare for the annual and highly popular “parade” event on 3 May 2025.
But the current weekday round trip from Wolsztyn to Zbaszynek on the Berlin-Warsaw main line and a rather longer Saturday trip to Poznan and back will come to an end on 16 August 2025 when Wolsztyn depot’s one working main line loco will be stopped for repairs.
Mikado (2-8-2) Pt47-65 will then be sent away for a lengthy and overdue replacement of its metal tyres, so steam operations will only be able to resume when another of the resident Wolsztyn fleet, Ol49-59 (2-6-2) returns from its protracted overhaul, hopefully sometime in the autumn.
For the next three months, however, it is possible to experience the world’s last standard gauge steam services by travelling on the weekday 14.15 Wolsztyn-Zbaszynek and 15.37 return service, and the 10.39 Saturday departure for Poznan and 15.44 return working.
Zbaszynek is well-served by the regular Berlin-Warsaw expresses, but connections in and out of the weekday steam service are pretty poor. I arrived from the German capital on train EC49, which has a scheduled arrival time into Zbaszynek of 15.48, just 11 minutes after departure of the steam service and meaning an enforced 90 minute wait for the 17.28 railcar to Wolsztyn.
Given that there is no onward connection towards Leszno for the steam service when it arrives in Wolsztyn at 16.23 it must surely be possible to put back its departure time from Zbaszynek until about 16.00 in order the provide a decent connection out of the service from Berlin and so encourage more rail borne visitors like me to visit the attractive Polish town.
Connections are not much better in the reverse direction, where anyone wanting to travel behind steam and continue on towards Berlin is faced with a lengthy wait from arrival of the steam service at 15.06 until departure of EC44 towards Berlin more than an hour later at 16.20.
Polish train fares are cheap by UK standards, and with the over 60s getting an automatic 25% discount on all services operated by regional operator Koleje Wielkopolskie, a single for the 28km (17½-mile) steam trip from Wolsztyn to Zbaszynek costs just PLN 9.52 (£1.90).
Anyone lucky enough to have a Saturday in Wolsztyn can take the 100-mile steam hauled round trip to Poznan for a fare (with 25% discount) of PLN 38.85 (£7.80), so at these fares it is rather disappointing to see how few enthusiasts are actually travelling on the steam services.
Taking the opportunity of a trip on the 10.39 steam-hauled service from Wolsztyn on Saturday, 10 May 2025, it was good to see just how popular this service is with local travellers, with the two-coach train full and standing long before our 12.50 arrival into the main station at Poznan.
This Saturday working is at a rather leisurely pace, with an end-to-end journey time of 2 hours 11 minutes compared to the 90 minute running time of railcar services, but does include two 10-11 minutes stops at Rakoniewice and Steszew to allow Wolsztyn-bound railcars to pass and also means a chance to join local people in photographing the steam loco.
As I wrote in November 2024, Wolsztyn depot badly needs is someone with marketing skills who is capable of capitalising on the uniqueness of the steam services and its value to the local economy in order to attract back at least some of those overseas visitors who deserted the town with the demise of the Wolsztyn Experience in mid-2023.
There are occasional special trains on Sundays and holidays using the Wolsztyn steam locos – there is also a 0-6-0 tank engine suitable for local specials – and part of the former line to a place called Nowa Sol as far as Swietno survives as a museum line that sees use by special trains, with a number having run over the recent Parade weekend.
Besides being a very attractive and historic town with some sights and great eating places, Wolsztyn is a very easy place to reach from the UK, either travelling via Berlin, as I did on this occasion, or by taking one of the regular Ryanair or Wizzair flights to Poznan from a number of UK airports.
For local rail timetables, go to http://www.koleje-wielkopolskie.com.pl where you will find PDF line timetables (Rozklad Jazdy) but it has no English version, so for buying print-at-home tickets for local journeys I use an excellent Polish site http://www.Koleo.pl which can be programmed in English and sells tickets for all the many Polish operators, including KW.
For regular updates on steam activity at Wolsztyn, go to http://www.parowozy.com.pl
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