Preservatio N dawn
In a country that’s keen to leave the past behind, TOBY JENNINGS sees a glimmer of hope on the horizon for one of the world’s last bastions of working steam
PAROWOZ!” yells the fireman as he opens the firebox doors, flooding the cab of the big black 2‑6‑2 with dazzling white light, as it charges eastwards through the darkness towards the breaking dawn. ‘Parowoz’, I’ve discovered, is the magic word for ‘steam locomotive’, but what he means in this case is simply ‘steam’ ‑ or rather, that we need more of it. That’s my cue to dig once more into the small coal and slack cascading from the bogie tender swaying and bucking behind us. Swinging a dozen shovelfuls evenly around the large, square grate, I slam the doors shut again and grin at the fireman. He grins back, and then shouts something else. It sounds like a mixture of his native tongue and English, but above the roar of the exhaust, I can’t be sure. The only word
I catch for certain is ‘engine’ ‑ but from the ‘taking off’ movement he makes with the flat of his hand, followed by the classic gesture of moving his arms like coupling rods, not only is his enthusiasm clear, but also his meaning. It’s his equivalent of ‘She’s a good ‘un!’ That she certainly is. I glance up again at the unprotected light bulb illuminating what I now know to be the boiler pressure gauge. Just two days ago, I’d only ever admired this class of ‘parowoz’ from afar in photographs. Now I’ve taken on the job of providing the steam to get this one, and its trainload of Steam Railway readers, on the first leg of an epic, near‑300‑mile railtour. But the needle remains rock steady just below the red line. This is Poland. This is working steam in the 21st century. This is the Wolsztyn Experience.
Europe’s 1968
Just as Lostock Hall led a fairly undistinguished life until it wrote itself into the history books as the very last shed on BR to drop the fires, Wolsztyn’s eight‑road roundhouse has achieved immortal fame as the last standard gauge shed in Europe to roster steam on daily scheduled passenger trains. While steam finished elsewhere in Poland in 1994, it survived at Wolsztyn, an anachronistic remnant of a bygone age in a nation emerging from more than 40 years of communist rule. Today, it’s still one of the few places in the world where coal is shovelled in the name of providing a genuine rail service, freight or passenger ‑ and certainly the only one where you can be on the footplate. You know it’s going to be no ordinary holiday when you pass someone on the stairs of a hotel in western Poland wearing bib and braces, carrying one of those black leather footplate bags, and looking as though they’ve come straight from a British preserved line. Since ex‑pat Howard Jones MBE set it up in 1997, the Wolsztyn Experience has put an estimated 4,000 visitors on the footplate, for about 1.6 million miles. But perhaps an even greater achievement is converting some who’ve previously dismissed foreign steam as being of no consequence. Steve Godwin of South Wales says: “I used to think all foreign engines were rubbish ‑ but then I saw a programme on the Discovery Channel about the Wolsztyn Experience, and said to my wife: ‘I’ll do that once, just to get it out of my system’…I still haven’t.”
‘Ol’ Faithful
Yet for almost two years, this unique and precious enclave has been clinging on to existence by the most precarious of threads. Howard proudly declares: “When we started, our aim was to keep working steam going into the new millennium ‑ and everyone said we’d never get it off the ground!” But although in the early years of the 21st century, Wolsztyn was still turning out half a dozen engines every day for freight and commuter trains, and nothing seemed to have changed from the 1960s (except that you could now photograph it, unlike during the grim Cold War era), it’s now shrunk to a ‘one engine in steam’ operation. The sole working locomotive, ‘Ol49’ 2‑6‑2 No. 69, was referred to by one tour participant as ‘Old Faithful’, yet on March 31 2014, it was rewarded by having its last regular commuter turn taken away. Apparently, to the regular travellers in this modernising land, shiny new DMUs with Wi‑ Fi, or even the four‑wheeled units that we dub ‘Pacerskis’, are preferable to steam‑heating and lungfuls of clag. Baffling, eh?
If further proof were needed of just how marginal the situation is, at the end of October No. Ol49-69 went for an intermediate boiler exam and re-tube - leaving Wolsztyn steamless for a (thankfully) brief period, until 2-8-2T No. TKt48-191 arrived from Chabowka museum to stand in. Even now, nobody knows exactly what the future holds - hopes that the daily steam service could be reinstated for the beginning of 2016 have been dashed, for although agreements are in place between PKP Cargo (operators of Wolsztyn depot), the local government and chamber of commerce to restart and fund the operation, they had still not been signed as this article was being finalised. But there’s optimism too, that this will prove to be ‘rock bottom’ for Wolsztyn, and things will start looking up from here.
Mixed emotions
My own first few hours in Wolsztyn seem to herald that somehow, for my initial impression is rather a sad one - and yet within minutes, I’ve witnessed something that gives me hope for the future. Reaching the station, where sleek new DMUs jar
the Soviet‑era building and semaphore signals, there are the first of the Polish engines that I’ve come 700 miles to see… but it’s a heartbreaking sight. A once‑mighty ‘Pt47’ 2‑8‑2, with its rods removed, headlights and windows smashed and black paint fading, stands dumped with an ‘Ol49’ that can only be described as ‘ex‑Barry condition’. Taking a couple of photos, I turn away with a heavy heart, only for the spring to return to my step as I reach the bridge, for there’s a pall of smoke hanging over the distant shed. Striding towards it, a line of five more locomotives comes into view, parked alongside the road leading past the steam‑era signal box, but all of them as dead as the wrecks by the station. Closer inspection reveals, however, that these have received cosmetic restoration ‑ and the reason for placing them here becomes clear as families walk past to admire them. The fathers are making some excruciating ‘choo‑choo’ noises, but the children are bouncing up and down in sheer delight at getting up close and personal with the massive heavy freight 2‑10‑0s. If just one of those youngsters grows up to be a steam enthusiast with the passion to fight for its preservation, perhaps these engines have a brighter future after all? Mounting the footplate of the nearest, the controls are rusted solid and seem as though they may never move again, but they’ve been given coats of paint and explanatory labels. Then suddenly, a magical sound reaches my ears ‑ the dull roar of a steam locomotive’s blower being turned up ‑ and the source of the smoke reveals itself, in the form of No. Ol49‑69 poking out of the roundhouse. Its driver glances down at the Brit with a camera. “You want look?” I nod eagerly and squeeze through the doors, to be instantly transported back in time. Every other engine in here is cold to the touch, but with the warmth and life of the ‘Ol49’, it’s still a working roundhouse. Was it really only a week ago that I was savouring this same atmosphere at Barrow Hill? I take a few more pictures of the simmering 2‑6‑2, but the light is rapidly fading and, the friendly driver assures me, it’s all ready for tomorrow’s run following “small repair!” Time then to repair to the hotel for dinner and a few Polish beers, but not before ‘cabbing’ the rest of the engines in the display line. Here, another ‘Pt47’ leaves a lasting impression when I find I can barely reach the bottom of its handrails, and must surmount no fewer than five steps to its footplate. In that moment, I promise myself that I must come back, just to see one of these beasts in steam. Happily, that will be possible in the foreseeable future, for No. Pt47‑65 is undergoing overhaul at Chabowka (though it’s proving to be a frustratingly protracted job) while Leszno depot has just outshopped No. Ol49‑59 to take some of the pressure off ‘Old Faithful’ once the latter returns from its ‘intermediate’. Whether or not the daily running is re‑instated, both will be put to good use in 2016, for Howard assures me: “We have a concrete plan.” Blocks of steam‑hauled services are booked thoughout the year, along with railtours to various destinations, including other Polish preservation centres (see panel). “We took the lead to do something positive, and we will persevere ‑ a lot of our regulars have supported us through this difficult time, and if we have to put in more money, we will. It’s never been about money ‑ it’s been about making people happy (and preservation, of course). “But we really do need people to support us, either by visiting for those dates or doing the footplate experience.” Now if you think that a series of railtours and a plea of ‘use it or lose it’ sounds more like a preserved operation than genuine working steam, then you might have a point. But almost two years since the loss of the commuter train, that could be its best hope of survival.
The next generation
‘POCHIAG RETRO’ reads the destination board of a coach on shed; the first word, delightfully pronounced ‘Pa‑chonk’, is the Polish for ‘train’, and the second really speaks for itself. During the course of the SR trip, our runs from Wolsztyn out to Zbaszynek, Rakoniewice and Stefanowo are indeed service trains, and appear as such on the timetables at the rustic wayside stations. Yet it’s clear that, already, steam is fast becoming a novelty. Where once the locals wouldn’t have given the ‘Ol49’ a second glance, everywhere we go during the week, people gaze at it in awe and take pictures of it on their phones. Children on the footbridge at Wolsztyn delight in being engulfed by the clag as it barks underneath (and believe me, in Poland that’s a LOT of clag. None of your ‘textbook light grey exhaust’ out here). An even younger generation lines the fence of a nursery playground to wave us on. As somebody once said, ‘everyone waves at a steam engine, but nobody waves at a diesel’. It’s true, no matter where in the world you are. Service trains they may be, but many of the Poles also seem to have come for the steam. One man, who has travelled 200 kilometres to join us at Rakoniewice, enthuses: “When I was only 10 years old I was hanging out of the car window watching these. Now they’re alive, I can touch them; it’s beautiful!” No, it’s not quite the same as a steam‑hauled commuter train at six o’clock in the morning ‑ and yes, of course daily steam is worth fighting for to the last ‑ but surely the most important thing of all is that steam survives in some form. And there are the makings of a truly great preservation scene here, if only such enthusiasm translates into support for one. Despite a lot of scrapping over the last few decades, just under 300 standard gauge steam locomotives (and over 100 narrow gauge ones) remain in Poland. Not far off what the ‘Barry miracle’ left us with in ex‑BR terms, then.
Two Barrow Hills?
On the final day of the tour, it feels almost as though we’re looking at most of those locomotives at once, such is the wealth of the museum collection at Jaworzyna Slaska. With 42 engines to look after, this 19‑road quarter‑roundhouse has now leased a second roundhouse 28km away at Dzierzoniow Slaski. In similar vein to British preserved lines that restore their stations to different periods and offer a ‘journey through time’, the plan is to display the pre‑war locomotives at the former shed and post‑war ones at the latter, linked by steam‑hauled trains over PKP metals. Currently, these are in the hands of ‘TKt48’ 2‑8‑2T No. 18 hauling two four‑wheeled coaches of 1928 vintage, which only returned to service in June after complete re‑builds (one had a tree growing through it). Highlights include one of the ‘Pt31’ 2‑8‑2s that were the pre‑war forerunners of the ‘Pt47s’ (and if anything, it’s even more magnificent to behold, despite being unrestored), plus a comprehensive collection of British, American and German wartime freight engines. As well as a pair of USATC ‘S160s’, and of course plenty of ‘Kreigsloks’, there’s one of the few surviving ‘Liberation’ 2‑8‑0s built by the Vulcan Foundry for the United Nations Relief & Rehabilition Administration, to help just such war‑torn systems as PKP (Polski Koleje Panstwowe) get back on their feet. Apart from No. TKt48‑18, none are in working order and some are derelict, but most have received cosmetic attention ‑ and so a sizeable ‘strategic reserve’ exists, should these green shoots of Polish preservation bear fruit. It seems they might.
“When we first started running we’d get less than 500 visitors in a year,” says museum director Katarzyna Sczerbinska, “but when we had the ‘Steam International’ event in September we got 8,000.” Just as in the UK, though, the constraints on preservation are funding and staff, but the latter even more so in a country that doesn’t yet have much of a volunteering culture.
A spotter’s paradise
The difficulties of running steam in the UK rear their heads during Saturday’s railtour, also; we’ve got an electric locomotive on the rear, ostensibly for heating; at one point we’re brought to a swift emergency stop because we’ve set off a hot axlebox detector; and late at night on the return journey, we’re ready to leave Leszno early, but the Polish equivalent of Network Rail, on this now privatising system, won’t let us… For a moment there, it feels like a British railtour. And yet it’s something rather more, as I’ve already discovered with the footplate ride ‑ and as we find again during the stopover at Wroclaw. Wroclaw offers much for a trainload of railtour passengers with a couple of hours to spare; spread across islands in the River Oder, it’s known as the ‘city of bridges’ or the ‘Lower Silesian Venice’, while for railway enthusiasts there’s the ‘Train to Heaven’, a bizarre sculpture formed of a ‘Kriegslok’ 2‑10‑0 up‑ended with its smokebox pointing to the sky. But instead, I and another member of the party went shed‑bunking. This was not the group visit that we’d had to Leszno earlier in the day. This was a full‑on, totally unofficial, 1950s spotters’ shed‑bunk. The ‘cops’ that we sought were ‘Pt47’ No. 94 and ‘TKh’ 0‑6‑0T No. 05353, which recently had the honour of opening Poland’s newest railway. The ‘Pt47’ is easy enough to find, plinthed by the road leading into the depot; we fail to track down the ‘TKh’, but this isn’t because we’re booted out by a foreman. The staff shake their heads when we ask its whereabouts in our best pidgin Polish (“Locomotiv parowy?”, showing them the pictures on the backs of our cameras) but nor do they seem in the least concerned that we’re there. I’ve no idea what the Polish is for ‘Oi! Where d’you think you’re going?’ but we certainly never hear anything that sounds like it. It’s just another example of how relaxed life is in this wonderful country. Howard testifies: “Whenever I’m back in the UK, I go to walk off the end of the platform and have to remind myself, no, you can’t do that here…” The disappointment of missing the ‘TKh’ evaporates, however, on ascending from the subway to rejoin the train. The sight of No. 69 simmering at the far end of the platform, electric headlights blazing like eyes in the darkness, suddenly pulls me up short; it’s one of those unforgettable moments that you just have to stop and savour for a few seconds more. And the fact that it’s a rather different shape to the engines back home matters not a jot. By this time I’m thoroughly knackered after a 5am start and a turn on the shovel before breakfast, but the steam (and now, the high‑sulphur Polish clag) in the blood overcomes fatigue. I stand at the window drinking in the atmosphere of a long‑distance steam journey, as the ‘Ol49’ leaves the bright lights of Wroclaw behind and hammers into the night; ducking back inside just west of Leszno as a sudden eruption of sparks from the chimney comes raining down around the leading coach; and through it all, the exhaust never misses a beat as ‘Old Faithful’ hurries us back towards the starting point of Wolsztyn.
Poland’s Plandampf
So is Wolsztyn still Europe’s last working steam, or should it now be classed as preservation? Or does it sit in some grey area between the two? Until March 31 2014 the unequivocal answer would have been the former; now, without the commuter train, but with steam still working some timetabled services, perhaps it’s best described as a ‘Plandampf’. Though with one important difference. Ze Germans may be happy to run ‘Pacifics’ in parallel on passenger trains, or use a trio of 2‑10‑0s to double‑head and bank a 2,000‑ton coal train, but they’re not quite laid‑back enough to let you on the footplate. Only in Poland, a country that still seems to have largely escaped the spread of health and safety, could such a thing be possible. From the vantage point of an ‘Ol49’s cab, though, the niceties of who owns the engine, what time of day it is, and whether its train is carrying commuters or enthusiasts, really pale into insignificance. On the footplate, on the main line, it is just a steam locomotive doing exactly what it was designed to do, crewed by enginemen who’ve done the job for decades. It is still as close as you can get, anywhere in the world, to (officially!) experiencing real working steam from the footplate ‑ but like the days of steam, if it is allowed to disappear, we will never see its like again.