A buddy of mine who works for Deutsche Bahn emailed me that regular passenger service behind PKP steam has ended at Wolsztyn. Their webpage is in Polish, with some German, but from what I gather, there has been no steam since April 1. Here's the link for anybody whose linguistic skills are better than mine: http://www.parowozy.com.pl/news.htm

Sammy,

in fact, the scheduled steam has suddenly been phased out. On April18, there will be a regional politicians' meeting about the issue. Special trains will still continue running from Wolsztyn.

Mike

Having lived two years in Poland and as one who speaks the language, I took some tome to read all of the posts in Polish to see what is up. The following is true;

The issue is an economic issue. There are not enough people riding the train from Poznine (English spelling) to Wolsztyn and return.

Added to the fact that there are not enough people riding the train, the cost of keeping steam is too great.

The articles mention that though they are NOT running steam, they are very much in favor of keeping the Steam shop (round house....Parawosnic) in service as a museum.

In addition, there is talk about keeping seasonal steam in action.

So.....the point is: Daily steam from Wolsztyn to Poznine seems to be finished, but it is not the end of all steam.

Gentlemen,

Thanks kindly for your replies.

To me the obvious question is: What will become of their steam driver student program ??? I kind of got the feeling last year that PKP wasn't thrilled with letting the Wolsztyn Experience loose in the maze of tracks around Poznan-Glowny.

Thanks Again,
Sammy

From having been there over five years ago for four days, usually the regular engineer took the throttle in and around Poznan. One of them did allow me to do some running around Poznan, after he came to realize that I had some professional "driving" experience. He even allowed me to take the train up to an absolute stop signal, at night, in a left-hand curve, which really floored me. I don't know if I would have allowed someone I was "training" I couldn't easily communicate with to do that. Everyone here realizes the FRA would never stand for an operation like that in this country, and I wondered if the commuters who happened to ride the steam-powered trains realized they were riding more than a nostalgic excursion with the regular crews? The PKP steam crews really had a great deal of self-confidence in their abilities to safely run the "student trips" with the wide-variety of personalities they had to deal with.