Warsaw–Vienna Railway
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The Warsaw-Vienna Railway (; ) was a
railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...
system which operated since 1845 in
Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...
, then part of the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
. The main component of its network was a line 327.6 km in length from
Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
to the border station at Maczki (then called Granica) in
Sosnowiec Sosnowiec is an industrial city county in the Dąbrowa Basin of southern Poland, in the Silesian Voivodeship, which is also part of the Metropolis GZM municipal association.—— Located in the eastern part of the Upper Silesian Industrial Re ...
with the
Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a Multinational state, multinational European Great Powers, great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the Habsburg monarchy, realms of the Habsburgs. Duri ...
, and since 1867 the
Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military and diplomatic alliance, it consist ...
. There the line reached the Austrian railway network, offering connections to
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
(hence the name of the line) and beyond. It was the first railway line built in
Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...
and the second in the Russian Empire, after a short stretch of 27 km between
Tsarskoye Selo Tsarskoye Selo (, , ) was the town containing a former residence of the Russian House of Romanov, imperial family and visiting nobility, located south from the center of Saint Petersburg. The residence now forms part of the Pushkin, Saint Peter ...
and
Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
( Saint Petersburg–Tsarskoe Selo Railway) which opened in 1837.Rakov, V.A.: ''Lokomotivy otechestvennyh zheleznyh dorog 1845-1955'', Moscow 1995, , p.10 The line used the standard European gauge (), as opposed to all other railways in the Russian Empire which used the
broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , more known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union countries ...
(), hence it formed a system physically separated from other Imperial Russian railways.


History


Ownership

The first concrete plan to build a railway between Warsaw and the southern border of the
Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...
was submitted to ''Bank Polski'' (Polish Bank) by a consortium led by Henryk Łubieński in January 1835. Three years later, in 1838 ''Towarzystwo Akcyjne Drogi Żelaznej Warszawsko-Wiedeńskiej '' (Warsaw-Vienna Rail Road Company Ltd) was established and granted a licence to build the railway. Arguments between proponents of horse and steam traction lasted many years, and only in 1840, the latter was chosen when the building work started. The company went bankrupt in 1843 and was taken over by the state. In 1857 the line was leased to a private company (also called ''Towarzystwo Akcyjne Drogi Żelaznej Warszawsko-Wiedeńskiej'') for 75 years, however, it was re-nationalized in 1912, with a compensation paid to the shareholders (mostly Belgians and Germans).


Permanent way

The first stretch of the line, from Warsaw to Grodzisk Mazowiecki (30 km), opened on 14 June 1845, and was extended to Skierniewice with a branch to Łowicz on 15 October 1845. Trains reached Częstochowa in 1846, Ząbkowice in 1847 and the Austrian border on 1 April 1848. There were 27 stations on the line. Initially, the line was single, but from the outset, the earthworks were prepared for a second track, which was gradually added to the whole route between 1872 and 1881. The terminal border station lay close to Szczakowa Station of the Kraków and Upper Silesia railway (Kolej Krakowsko-Górnośląska / Krakau-Oberschlesische Bahn). This line indirectly, via the two Prussian lines of the
Upper Silesian Railway The Upper Silesian Railway (, OSE, ) was one of the earliest railways in Silesia. It connected Wrocław (Breslau) in Lower Silesia with Mysłowice (Myslowitz) in Upper Silesia. The first section was opened in and the last in , after which it r ...
(Oberschlesische Bahn) and William's Railway (Wilhelmsbahn) was joined to the Austrian Northern Railway (in
Bohumín Bohumín (; , ) is a town in Karviná District in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 20,000 inhabitants. Administrative division Bohumín consists of seven municipal parts (in brackets population according to the 202 ...
), which reached the Prussian border from Vienna. An entirely Austrian communication was not available before 1856, when the Austrian Eastern National Railway, predecessor of the Kraków and Upper Silesia Railway, closed the gap with a branch from
Trzebinia Trzebinia (; ''Tchebin'') is a town in Chrzanów County, Lesser Poland, Poland with an Orlen oil refinery and a major rail junction of the Kraków - Katowice line, with connections to Oświęcim and Spytkowice. The town became part of Lesser Pola ...
to
Czechowice-Dziedzice Czechowice-Dziedzice (), known until 1958 as Czechowice, is a town in Bielsko County, Silesian Voivodeship, southern Poland. The town has 35,684 inhabitants, as of December 2021. It lies on the northeastern edge of the historical region of Cieszyn ...
.


Stations

*The Warsaw terminus (Vienna Station, ), designed by Enrico Marconi, opened in 1845 and remained in use for over 75 years. The building, facing Aleje Jerozolimskie, was 166 meters long and 18 meters wide, with the three-story central part, flanked by two 25 meter towers. The western tower housed an
optical telegraph An optical telegraph is a line of stations, typically towers, for the purpose of conveying textual information by means of visual signals (a form of optical communication). There are two main types of such systems; the semaphore telegraph whic ...
station on the top floor, the eastern one had a clock. *Marconi designed also the southern terminus of the line, in Granica, on a much more modest scale.


Rolling stock

The first five locomotives were purchased from John Cockerill's factory in Seraing. Later on, additional engines were obtained from
Borsig Borsig is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * (1867–1897), German entrepreneur * August Borsig (1804–1854), German businessman * Conrad von Borsig (1873–1945), German mechanical engineer * Ernst Borsig (1869–1933) ...
and other West European factories. From 1901 locomotives were Russian-built, but different from common Russian stock.


Route

Main line:
Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
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Grodzisk Mazowiecki Grodzisk Mazowiecki () is a town in central Poland, the capital of Grodzisk Mazowiecki County in the Masovian Voivodeship, with 34,718 inhabitants (2024). Grodzisk Mazowiecki is a town that developed from an Early Middle Ages, early medieval forti ...
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Skierniewice Skierniewice () is a city in central Poland with 45,184 inhabitants (2023), situated in the Łódź Voivodeship. It is the capital of Skierniewice County. Through the town runs the small river Łupia, also called Skierniewka. Located in the hist ...
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Koluszki Koluszki () is a town, and a major railway junction, in central Poland, in Łódź Voivodeship, about 20 km east of Łódź with a population of 12,776 (2020). The junction in Koluszki serves trains that go from Warsaw to Łódź, Wrocław, Cz ...
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Piotrków Trybunalski Piotrków Trybunalski (; also known by #Etymology, alternative names), often simplified to Piotrków, is a city in central Poland with 71,252 inhabitants (2021). It is the capital of Piotrków County and the second-largest city in the Łódź Voi ...
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Radomsko Radomsko () is a city in southern Poland with 44,700 inhabitants (2021). It is situated on the Radomka river in the Łódź Voivodeship. It is the county seat of Radomsko County. Founded in the 11th century, Radomsko is a former royal city located ...
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Częstochowa Częstochowa ( , ) is a city in southern Poland on the Warta with 214,342 inhabitants, making it the thirteenth-largest city in Poland. It is situated in the Silesian Voivodeship. However, Częstochowa is historically part of Lesser Poland, not Si ...
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Zawiercie Zawiercie () () is a town in southern Poland located in the Silesian Voivodeship with 49,334 inhabitants (2019). It is situated in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland near the source of the Warta River. The town lies near the historical region of Sil ...
- Ząbkowice Będzińskie - Strzemieszyce Południowe - Granica (border with Austria) Branch lines: *Skierniewice -
Łowicz Łowicz is a town in central Poland with 27,436 inhabitants (2021). It is situated in the Łódź Voivodeship. Together with a nearby station of Bednary, Łowicz is a major rail junction of central Poland, where the line from Warsaw splits into ...
*Ząbkowice -
Sosnowiec Sosnowiec is an industrial city county in the Dąbrowa Basin of southern Poland, in the Silesian Voivodeship, which is also part of the Metropolis GZM municipal association.—— Located in the eastern part of the Upper Silesian Industrial Re ...
*
Koluszki Koluszki () is a town, and a major railway junction, in central Poland, in Łódź Voivodeship, about 20 km east of Łódź with a population of 12,776 (2020). The junction in Koluszki serves trains that go from Warsaw to Łódź, Wrocław, Cz ...
- Łódź-Fabryczna The railway forms the present day PKP rail line 1 from
Warszawa Zachodnia station Warszawa Zachodnia station, in English Warsaw West, is a railway and long-distance bus station in Warsaw, Poland on the border of Ochota and Wola districts. The railway station is the westernmost terminus of the Warsaw Cross-City Line. It serve ...
to Katowice railway station, which runs along the original route from Warsaw up to Ząbkowice in present-day
Dąbrowa Górnicza Dąbrowa Górnicza () is a city in Zagłębie Dąbrowskie, southern Poland, near Katowice and Sosnowiec. It is located in eastern part of the Silesian Voivodeship, on the Czarna Przemsza and Biała Przemsza rivers (tributaries of the Vistula Rive ...
, however on the initial stretch between Warszawa Zachodnia and
Grodzisk Mazowiecki Grodzisk Mazowiecki () is a town in central Poland, the capital of Grodzisk Mazowiecki County in the Masovian Voivodeship, with 34,718 inhabitants (2024). Grodzisk Mazowiecki is a town that developed from an Early Middle Ages, early medieval forti ...
the line runs on an additional pair of tracks added during the second half of the 20th century, while the tracks running along the original trail form a separate line, designated PKP rail line 447, serving local traffic. In Dąbrowa Górnicza the PKP rail line 1 diverges along the original branch line to Sosnowiec and a short final segments to Katowice follows the route of the Upper Silesian Railway, while the end of the main line to Szczakowa forms PKP rail line 133 from Dąbrowa Górnicza Ząbkowice to Kraków Główny, together with the Kraków and Upper Silesia railway. The branch line from Skierniewice to Łowicz forms the present day PKP rail line 11 and the branch from Koluszki to Łódź Fabryczna - PKP rail line 17. The significance of the line as the main connection with southern Poland has decreased following the construction of the Central Rail Line in the 1970s, as well as the 1930s Coal Trunk Line providing a direct connection between Upper Silesian Industrial Area and the
Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...
coast while the PKP rail line 8 offers an alternative connection between Warsaw and Kraków, however the line still remains one of Poland's main trunk lines.


See also

* History of rail transport in Poland


References


Further reading

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Warsaw-Vienna railway International railway lines Railway companies of Poland Railway lines in Poland Railway lines in Austria Establishments in Congress Poland