The rail and the Ministry are preparing themselves for a Winter
08-12-2011
 Sławomir Nowak, the Minister of Transport, Construction and Maritime Economy informed about launching the ‘Winter’ staff and making decisions about this year’s rail’s preparation for a snow and a frost. The foundation are going to be new procedures, division of tasks and responsibility for activities made. He also stated that that the last year’s errors had been analyzed so that nobody would repeat them.

The ‘Winter’ staff consists of the representatives of companies from the PKP group – e. g. PKP Energetyka, PKP Intercity. They are a part of the Ministry’s supervision zone. The head of the staff is  Tadeusz Jarmuziewicz, the first deputy to the Minister and a secretary of state. The Minister from the rail section, Andrzej Massel, also is  in the staff.

At the beginning, they worked on a procedure of adopting a new timetable, which will come into effect in December 11th. They decided to start the action a lot earlier than previously. The timetable had been prepared three weeks earlier than a deadline. In December 5th, at railway stations and in trains the proper information has been placed. Functioning of the information telephone lines has been intensified. The powers of the server with an internet timetable has been increased to 1 million visits a day, what is a significant change in comparison with the last year’s 90 thousand.

The Minister however reminded that there is a problem with the Przewozy Regionalne [Regional Carriages] company, which is not in the department’s but in the Marshals of Province’s supervision. It is withdrawning another trains from traffic – 300 in the last three weeks.

The new conveniences will appear. The conductors will be equipped with mobile phones, so during an unexpected stop at the route, they will be giving information to the passengers about e. g. a reason and an expected length of the stop. Information about breakdowns and halts will be available at the stations and in the Internet (also for smartphones’ users). The Minister counts on the cooperation of different carriers, who, at the moment of a breakdown of one of them, will accept his tickets in their trains.

The decisions about prevention of train’s overloading during Holidays’ term and in the moment of a breakdown of a carriage have also been made. 995 carriers have been repaired, so the last year’s problem of a lack in PKP IC rolling stock should not repeat. Additionally, the company is extending the system of reservation. In trains of Tanie Linie Kolejowe (The Cheap Rail Lines), running at the eight longest routes, the seat reservations in the 2nd class will be compulsory – 5 zloty for each – along with comming into effect of the new timetable. At the moment when 90% of the seats will be reserved, more carriages will be added. PKP Energetyka is going to equip itself with more appliances to defrosting and removing breakdowns of a traction. In the Holidays’ term, the trains at the most popular lines will be lengthened to the possible maximum.

A passenger will not be forced to wait in the cold. At the moment of the extreme weather conditions, 432 out of 1000 medium and small railway stations will be open all day and 51 of them will have bars and cafes working day and night. If a train has a breakdown during its journey, the next one will not go from the station, so passengers will wait in a warm place, not in carriers. In case of an over-hour delay, they will receive warm baverages from PKP IC.

According to Sławomir Nowak, another three corrections in the timetable in 2012 are awaiting us. In March, June – additional connections because of EURO 2012 – and in August. The line Warsaw-Gdańsk through Działdowo will be excluded, so that it will be possible to repair this part. The trains will change their route to the one through Bydgoszcz and Kutno – the time of a journey will be shortened to 5 h 12 min. The route Kraków-Katowice will be changed either. He also informed that he would be trying to convince the Council of Ministers to postpone the next works – connected with creating of a fast speed rail – to the years after 2020. ‘If we can afford it, we will make this dream come true faster, but since then we have to handle the elementary cases at the rail, restoring a rolling stock and repairs of a track’ – he said.

The Minister assured that the resort would try to avoid extreme events, but he asked for an understanding in the sight of such big negligence in infrastructure during the last years. However, he added that he would not keep himself from punishing for the mistakes made by the rail’s staff.

Source: www.wnp.pl

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