European Railroad Discussion > Poland, Part 19. Tatra Mountains, over the border to CZ

Date: 10/21/21 00:45
Poland, Part 19. Tatra Mountains, over the border to CZ
Author: gobbl3gook

Three stations along the line.

I may add stories and map info to these posts a couple days after I post them. Feel free to ask questions, it's always more fun to write up stories, explanations and specuations if I know someone is interested!

Reviewing the route on Google Aerial View and OpenTopoMap, it looks like this would have been a fun area to bicycle through. With large medieval town centers in every town along the way. But, as you can see, it was raining, and there was rain in the forecast for the next couple days, so it was definitely a train + walk period on the calender.

1) I'll find the name of this station at some point.
Check out the baggage wing. Battered by time, but still holding together. Look at the two little sheds on the end -- one has very nice original doors. And the roof on the main area, one piece of fascia is hanging loose. And the long right => left run on that downspout. It's quite the building, it has a lot of stories to tell. What happened there in WWI? WWII? During the Lech Walensa coming of age era of the 1980s? How many years of the last 100 were passengers jubilent? How many years indifferent? How many years fearful? And how many classes of passenger cars have stopped there over the years? What year did they retire the platform guards? So many questions...

2) Henrikow
Nice doors!
https://www.openrailwaymap.org/?style=standard&lat=50.66426095751329&lon=17.025933265686035&zoom=16
https://opentopomap.org/#map=16/50.66323/17.02670
https://www.google.com/maps/@50.6633854,17.0297322,194m/data=!3m1!1e3

3) Domaszkow
Lots of high school students ride the trains to/from school.
https://goo.gl/maps/hnqAY2AinZPvomxXA
https://www.google.com/maps/@50.2116948,16.6558222,1078m/data=!3m1!1e3
https://opentopomap.org/#map=17/50.21219/16.65374

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/21 16:11 by gobbl3gook.

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Date: 10/21/21 00:49
Re: Tatra Mountains, Poland => CZ
Author: gobbl3gook

Castles, churches, palaces in the mountains.

I had my phone on Airplane Mode this day to conserve the battery. So the locations aren't saved in the photos. But they're pretty easy to find on OpenTopoMap.Org

4) Looks like this is a religious institution. Bardo
https://opentopomap.org/#map=17/50.50551/16.73916
https://goo.gl/maps/zUizKqxtDdW7XbAaA

5) Fortress is Klodzko
https://opentopomap.org/#map=16/50.44161/16.65597
https://goo.gl/maps/ufjJdyrJZMa9LwYQ7

6) Castle in the distance. I think this is what the Willamette Valley would look like if it had been developed 500 years earlier.

A note -- the highway in #4 is definitely undesireable for bicycling! I had looked at this route on OpenStreetMap (using the PocketEarth app on my iphone, where you can save entire countries and view them offline), it doesn't mean that you can't bicycle through here. You could take that highway for a few kilometres here and there where no alternate routes exist. And I ride with a rear view mirror, and often when there is a truck like that approaching from behind I just get off the road.

Here is Bardo on OpenCycleMap.
https://www.opencyclemap.org/?zoom=15&lat=50.50608&lon=16.74091&layers=B0000
You can see that Bicycle Route ER8 passes through this city center, but not on the highway.

This is one of the [many] reasons I like bicycle touring in Europe much better than in the US. In the western US there are only a select few mountain routes that have good alternates to the highway. And many highways lack shoulders. But in Europe there is a much better developed secondary road network, and developed bike paths along highways where secondary routes don't exist.

Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/21 14:13 by gobbl3gook.

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Date: 10/21/21 00:58
Re: Tatra Mountains, Poland => CZ
Author: gobbl3gook

Switching trains in (I think) Lichkov, CZ.

https://www.openrailwaymap.org/?style=standard&lat=50.09679819285972&lon=16.658878326416016&zoom=16 (Check out the international wye just to the east (with one leg out of service)
https://opentopomap.org/#map=14/50.09784/16.66175
https://www.google.com/maps/@50.0977706,16.6581624,1323m/data=!3m1!1e3
https://goo.gl/maps/BSsZyamAEbtRKD7Q8
https://en.mapy.cz/zakladni?x=16.6558557&y=50.1042420&z=14

I almost missed this train, only a short (10 minute?) transfer window, and I was out standing in the rain taking photos and video... Luckily someone hollered or waved at me.

I had also detrained the Polish train at Miedzylesie, the last stop in Poland, thinking that was the transfer station. I think my ticket was Wroclaw to Miedzylesie. Traveling with a bicycle and luggage it takes a little longer to get on and off. So I probably had everything staged by the door on the approach, and no sooner had I gotten it all down to the platform that some helpful bystander or train attendant convinced me to get it all back onboard again. So back aboard I went, and a few minutes later I was in Lichkov with the Czech train getting ready to depart.

So twice in one day I was almost left in a mountain town for a couple hours or overnight. But, all these places had grocery stores or restaurants, if not hotels. And I was on a very loose schedule. And traveling with my tent and sleeping bag.

This is why i like to travel on an open schedule. If you were trying to navigate this sort of a route on a fixed schedule, you'd be all stressed out about making the connections, and wouldn't enjoy the journey nearly as much!

As it is, I've probably climbed aboard 200 trains in a total of six months of traveling in Europe (over six years), and only once have I ended up in the "wrong" place. And only missed trains a few times.

October, 2019.

Questions, comments, observations?

Ted in OR

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/21 14:08 by gobbl3gook.

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Date: 10/21/21 06:54
Re: Tatra Mountains, Poland => CZ
Author: kurtarmbruster

I wince at the jumble of clashing color schemes (I mean, REALLY, guys!), but enjoy your neat images of eastern European railroading. Thanks for sharing!

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Date: 10/21/21 10:17
Re: Tatra Mountains, Poland => CZ
Author: pennengineer

kurtarmbruster Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wince at the jumble of clashing color schemes (I
> mean, REALLY, guys!), but enjoy your neat images
> of eastern European railroading. Thanks for
> sharing!

To be fair, the yellow and white DMU is operated by Koleje Dolnośląskie (Lower Silesian Railways), a train operator owned by the regional government of that part of Poland. The blue and white scheme is the current livery of České dráhy (Czech Railways), whereas the green-ish locomotive is a holdover of one of their earlier paint schemes. I'm not sure if having one locomotive with an outdated paint scheme is all that much to get worked up over, but that of course is up to you :-)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/21 23:18 by pennengineer.

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Date: 10/21/21 13:46
Re: Tatra Mountains, Poland => CZ
Author: gobbl3gook

Kurtarm -- I added a Google StreetView link to the Likchov station. You can see a Czech train with matching livery on the engine!

PennEngineer -- Thanks for the technical info.

Ted in OR

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/21 13:48 by gobbl3gook.

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Date: 10/21/21 16:28
Re: Tatra Mountains, Poland => CZ
Author: gobbl3gook

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Date: 10/21/21 17:25
Re: Tatra Mountains, Poland => CZ
Author: dwatry

I did a double-take on picture #2 with the name of the station - Henrykow. There was a British experimental musical group in the 70s/80s named Henry Cow - now I know where they (maybe) got the idea for the name!

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Date: 10/23/21 14:56
Re: Tatra Mountains, Poland => CZ
Author: Lackawanna484

dwatry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I did a double-take on picture #2 with the name of
> the station - Henrykow. There was a British
> experimental musical group in the 70s/80s named
> Henry Cow - now I know where they (maybe) got the
> idea for the name!

Also a noted Cistercian monastery.

Posted from Android

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European Railroad Discussion > Poland, Part 19. Tatra Mountains, over the border to CZ