Poland: CPK shifts focus from ‘hub and spoke’ to integrated network

Poland: CPK shifts focus from ‘hub and spoke’ to integrated network A changing geopolitical and policy landscape in Poland means the Port Polska high speed rail programme is now being seen as the cornerstone for a much broader transport investment strategy. Mike Bent reports. Long heralded as one of Europe’s most significant infrastructure programmes, the Port Polska scheme to develop a new hub airport for Poland and the wider central Europe region with connecting high speed rail links continues to inch forward. The future airport site received final sign-off in late May, clearing the way for passenger terminal foundation works to start in September. The airport forms the central hub around which the Port Polska rail programme is being built, including the initial rail link to Warszawa and Łódź. Project promoter CPK says this could become Poland’s busiest rail route by 2035. The final sign-off on the flagship airport follows more than a year of administrative and property-related wrangling around the airport site. The original location decision was issued by Mazowieckie voivodship in January 2025, covering a 2 585 ha site between the Polish capital and Łódź that includes the airport infrastructure, part of the railway hub and the surrounding road network. The appeals against the decision have now been resolved by national Minister of Finance & Economy Andrzej Domański, and it has become final. CPK, which is implementing the rebranded Port Polska airport and rail programme, said this marked ‘the next step in the administrative process to implement the Port Polska investment programme’, with work on the airport terminal now due to start in September. A changing context The Port Polska rail programme promises to reshape the economic geography of Poland. But its delivery will also be shaped by the local and regional politics that have, since the scheme’s inception in the mid-2010s, become increasingly volatile. Poland stands on the front line should a possible westward invasion by Russia (probably aided by Belarus) take place. Meanwhile, Poland’s own political landscape has shifted radically, with the far-right PiS (Law & Justice) party, which formally launched the CPK/Port Polska air and rail investment package, having been supplanted by the left-leaning Civic Coalition party led by Donald Tusk. This change of government in October 2023 has led to Port Polska’s high speed rail element being reassessed. Even before the election, ministers from the ruling PiS party made the case that CPK’s rail element would need to recognise Poland’s relative decentralisation, and the need to invest in railways away from the major population centres in order to gain political buy-in for the high speed routes. ‘We value this decentralised population of Poland, we see it as a great advantage and opportunity. We want to stop the situation where young people go to study in a bigger city or even abroad and then they don’t go back to their hometown’, then State Secretary for Infrastructure Marcin Horała told Railway Gazette International in March 2023. But the Tusk administration has gone further, rebranding the programme as Port Polska, while retaining CPK as the name for the project promotion body. More fundamentally, the approach to the rail aspect of the programme is now described by the term Zintegrowana Sieć Kolejowa, or integrated rail network. At its heart, the ZSK plan aims to ensure the high speed spine already well in the procurement phase, covering the ‘Y route’ from Warszawa, Łódź and Poznań/Wrocław forms the start of a holistic plan to develop the national railway grid. The starting point for the ZSK is 2035, when the high speed ‘Y’ is scheduled for completion, alongside various local projects being financed under the Kolej Plus programme led by the provinces, and PKP PLK’s own national rail programme (Krajowy Program Kolejowy). Towards a national rail plan Among rail advocates, there is a hope that ZSK could form a long-term programme to drive investment similar to the one the Polish government agreed in 1993 that underpinned a generation of motorway and trunk road construction across the country. Over the past 20 years, rail plans have come and gone in piecemeal fashion, starting with an initial study into high speed rail options in 2008 (RG 10.08 p799). After the CPK programme was first set out in 2017, the Kolej Plus plan released in December 2019 sought to address concerns that local railways were being left behind. It proposed significant upgrades to rural lines and construction of several new links. But Kolej Plus had the downside of leaving the voivodships to bear the brunt of finding funding; these ambitions now look challenging given how much has changed in the past seven years. All these programmes envisaged a level of EU co-finance, but none of them viewed the rail network comprehensively or holistically. No full consideration was given of demand, movement flows, or the need for interprovincial travel. Freight traffic was ignored. And until February 2022, national defence was not a prime consideration. Threading a path through Łódź Completion of the Port Polska ‘Y network’ requires forging a route for inter-city trains to pass through Łódź. In doing so, planners will have to attempt to overcome a long-standing historical barrier that has stymied development of the rail network around the city. The historical development of the railway in the textile city has been well documented. But shifting borders in the 20th century left the surface-level terminus at Łódź Fabryczna, completed in 1868, as an anachronism as well as a major operating impediment. By 1941, the city had what amounted to an orbital railway, but there was no direct line between the two principal stations, Fabryczna and Kaliska. In 2002, a national railway development campaign group presented a concept for a metro-style network that would address the cross-city gap. An agreement between the city and provincial authorities and PKP PLK regarding the financing of a cross-city tunnel for suburban trains was signed on September 26 2009, and over the next few years a feasibility study was undertaken. The first physical step in the project was the closure of Łódź Fabryczna on October 15 2011. The railway from Warszawa was rerouted underground at Łódź Niciarniana, and the whole of the urban area surrounding the old station including the station building itself was cleared for redevelopment. The new underground station, also named Łódź Fabryczna, was inaugurated on December 11 2016, initially functioning as a terminus. On November 28 2016 PKP PLK invited a design and build tender for the tunnel under the city centre. This was won by a consortium formed of Energopol Szczecin and Przedsiębiorstwo Budowy Dróg i Mostów, and a contract was signed on December 28 2017. However, the main contractor, Energopol Szczecin, then dropped out of the running, having filed for bankruptcy. Nevertheless, excavation works commenced in August 2019 on a 1.59bn złoty project to bore a tunnel westwards. The twin-bore tunnel was designed with underground stations at Łódź Śródmieście, Łódź Polesie and Łódź Koziny. A deep-level triangular junction would enable trains to reach Łódź Żabieniec to the north and Łódź Kaliska to the south. The total length of the underground sections is 7.5 km. PKP PLK had hoped that the tunnel might be completed during 2022, but that deadline had already slipped to December 31 2024 before disaster struck in September of that year: a block of flats overlooking the worksite partially collapsed, and around 250 residents had to be rehoused at the contractor’s expense. This added around 2m złoty to its costs. Boring was halted, and TBM ‘Katarzyna’ became trapped in solidified subterranean mud, approximately 1 km from Łódź Fabryczna. By February 2026, PKP PLK had had enough, and terminated the contract with PBDiM. Fresh tenders were then called. By mid-March, there were five bidders, including Porr, which had in the meantime won the contract for the second tunnel under the city centre, which will be used by high speed trains serving the Port Polska network. The high speed tunnel will be built to the south of the bores for the suburban link, and it will be only 4.6 km long, with a diameter of 14 m. The double-track alignment will be suitable for 160 km/h running. The western portal is to be excavated at Retkinia, southwest of Łódź Kaliska, where a shaft for lowering the TBM has already been prepared. High speed and conventional trains will share the facilities at Łódź Fabryczna. Porr won the 2.2bn złoty, 46-month contract for boring the tunnel in late June 2025. According to the contractor, boring should start in early 2027 and be completed by early 2028. Discussions between project promoter CPK and local residents worried over the safety of the buildings along the route are still in progress. Nevertheless, on March 10 Porr awarded Alstom a subcontract to design and supply its Onvia signalling system for the tunnel. The eastern section of the high speed ‘Y’ between the capital and Łódź is currently scheduled for completion in late 2032, with the western arms to the junction at Sieradz and then to Wrocław and Poznań are planned for handover by late 2035. However, the only tangible sign of work to date has been the excavation of a shaft to lower the TBM into at Retkinia. Indeed, at the end of April, this was the sole active worksite so far created for the entire Port Polska programme. ZSK looks to industry The government is seeking to make ZSK an inclusive plan that reflects the input of a broad spectrum of civic society, while also recognising Poland’s position as one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe. In each of the 16 voivodships, panels of specialists have been established, with more than 600 participants in total. During summer 2025, in addition to considering rail-based passenger transport requirements, these panels addressed rail freight and intermodal transport, defence and territorial cohesion, and international transport routes. Discussions were also held with the logistics and freight transport sector. The Marek Karp Centre for Eastern Studies, a defence think tank, is also involved as a sounding-board for the military mobility aspects of the plan. The Polish railway network has already played a significant role in human logistics and crisis management following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. From the academic sphere, various transport modelling initiatives are being launched to assess the country’s future rail and public transport needs. These will provide guidance on trip generation, spatial distribution, modal split, and traffic distribution across the transport network. A dedicated rail freight transport model is included. Planned network expansion If all of the current programmes come to fruition on time, by 2035 Poland could have grown its current 19 000 route-km network by a further 1 000 km. The new lines envisaged are: • The high speed ‘Y’, made up of a 140 km high speed line from Warszawa via the Port Polska airport to Łódź, a further 200 km to Wrocław, with a 155 km branch from Sieradz to Poznań. • An extension of the north-south CMK main line from Katowice to Ostrava as part of a fast corridor between Warszawa and Wien. • The Rail Baltica route being developed for speeds of at least 200 km/h, running from Warszawa to Białystok, Kaunas, Riga and Tallinn. • The Podłęże-Piekiełko/Line 104 project to reduce journey times between Kraków, Zakopane, Nowy Sącz and destinations in Slovakia. • The various local railway revival schemes planned under Kolej Plus project; the number delivered will depend on provincial ability to part-finance them. Connecting the country A team of 608 specialists from the 16 provinces is now analysing their respective transport requirements. Around 8 000 km of new or revived railway has been evaluated for possible incorporation into ZSK once the 2035 package has been completed. Poland is fortunate in that many of the railways closed in the late 1990s and early 2000s were not dismantled, so the land they occupy still remains in the hands of PKP Group and — in the unique case of Dolnośląskie — the provincial rail and road network manager Dolnośląska Służba Dróg i Kolei, based in Wrocław. It is envisaged that once the assessment has been completed, around 1 000 km of the 8 000 km will be added to the ZSK portfolio for development. Demographic headaches Amid the optimism, there are clear constraints too. One is a labour crisis in the Polish construction industry, upon which any future expansion of the rail network will heavily depend. By the fourth quarter of 2023, around 72% of Polish construction companies were reporting that labour shortages had become a barrier to increased production, compared to an EU-wide average of 28%. The reasons cited are familiar: demographics, caused by an ageing workforce, outward migration of skilled workers, and a lack of interest among the younger generations. Another potential difficulty is saturation of the supply chain, with PKP PLK currently holding a cumulative order book worth around 56bn złoty. Nevertheless, preparation of the ZSK plan continues, with further evaluation of the options currently underway. Publication of a preferred way forward is expected by the middle of the year, but by early April the future network proposals had been narrowed down to three options. Three meetings have taken place with representatives from the Polish army to assess the military’s logistics requirements under the plan, while representatives of various security and interior ministries within government have also participated. Dorota Duda of the state Critical Infrastructure Protection Department, commented that ‘in our opinion, the Port Polska railway programme projects are among the most important infrastructure investments, and concern a key transport hub of national and European importance’. Multiple operators eye Łódź market In the late 1990s, such was the overcrowding on PKP expresses between Łódź and Warszawa, especially at peak commuting periods, that passengers from Łódź referred to themselves as ‘the boat people’, a pun that partly references the literal translation of the city’s name. Fast forward to today, and rail connectivity between the two cities is far from straightforward. While there are 34 timetabled departures from Warszawa Centralna or Śródmieście to Łódź on a typical weekday, only 22 are through services to Fabryczna; the other 12 involve a change at Widzew or Skierniewice. No less than four operators cover all or part of the corridor: PKP Intercity, PolRegio, Łódzka Kolej Aglomeracyjna and — east of Skierniewice — Koleje Mazowieckie. The timetable is not clockface, and the fastest journey time for the 131.6 km run from Centralna to Fabryczna is 1 h 5 min; at the time of writing, this was achieved by only one service leaving the capital at 09.12. The case for running more and faster services between Warszawa and Łódź appears strong. National regional operator PolRegio has already begun discussions with CPK over procurement of a batch of up to 80 trains, some of which would be able to run at 200 km/h on the high speed ‘Y’. PolRegio envisages operating commercial services on the route without subsidy, although some of the RegioExpress and AeroExpress services planned by CPK would be run under a PSO agreement. The AeroExpress services are expected to become the main form of passenger transport between Łódź, the future new airport and Warszawa, with annual ridership in 2035 estimated at around 6.5 million — double the current level. It is expected that there will be half-hourly departures from Łódź and trains every 15 min between the airport and Warszawa. Provincial sprinter Like several other provincially owned operators, Łódzka Kolej Aglomeracyjna is not content to operate only suburban services within its own voivodship. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the start of ŁKA’s express service between Łódź and Warszawa. Over the past decade, it has carried 4.6 million passengers on this route, and delivered a 1 h 7 min end-to-end journey time. However, the services, branded ŁKA Sprinter, only operate at weekends and on public holidays. While the early incarnation of the service suffered from the disruption of the rebuild at Łódź Fabryczna, today there are 12 pairs of trains daily at weekends, all but one calling at Łódź Niciarniana, Łódź Widzew, Koluszki, Rogów, Skierniewice, Warszawa Zachodnia, Centralna and Wschodnia. One ‘Super Sprinter’ service runs non-stop between Łódź Widzew and Warszawa Zachodnia, covering the 128.2 km from Łódź Fabryczna to Warszawa Zachodnia in 1 h 2 min. With this track record of growth behind it, ŁKA may see the emergence of the Port Polska network as an opportunity for further expansion. AeroExpress plan takes shape Meanwhile, CPK has now set out how the rail link serving the new airport is expected to reshape national passenger flows, publishing modelling that suggests the Warszawa – airport – Łódź corridor could become Poland’s busiest rail route by 2035. AeroExpress is planned to run between Warszawa Wschodnia, the new airport and Łódź Kaliska, with trains every 15 min between the capital and the airport and every 30 min through to Łódź. CPK says journey times would be around 22 min from Warszawa Centralna to the airport and around 1 h 8 min from Warszawa to Łódź Fabryczna, from where trains would continue through the city’s cross-city tunnel to reach Kaliska station. Using its Passenger Transport Model, CPK forecasts around 30 000 passengers/day would use the AeroExpress service by 2035. It also expects more than 6 million passengers/year to travel between the capital and Łódź across all train categories, including AeroExpress, high speed and inter-regional services. That would mark a sharp increase from the 2.4 million passengers recorded on the Warszawa – Łódź route in 2024, and would put the corridor ahead of Gdańsk – Gdynia, currently Poland’s busiest rail route at around 5.4 million passengers/year. CPK forecasts that AeroExpress could carry between 10 million and 12 million passengers/year in 2035, depending on fare policy. The project promoter says AeroExpress is intended to serve three overlapping markets: passengers travelling to and from the new airport, daily commuters between Warszawa and Łódź, and employees working at the airport and its surrounding facilities. For commuters, CPK believes the service would become the first choice because of its frequency and affordability, with AeroExpress planned as a subsidised public service obligation rather than a commercial airport train. Nevertheless, the relative lack of journey time saving for travellers between Warszawa and Łódź when compared to existing services must serve as a potential caveat on these growth ambitions, even if the extra capacity offered by Port Polska will no doubt be welcomed by the ‘boat people’. More rail links emerging Expansion of the network is not waiting for ZSK to be finalised, though. In late March it was announced that preliminary design had been completed for a 60 km section of the 250 km/h high speed line between Katowice and the Czech border. CPK is acting as project promoter, and it is to receive €1·75m to support the design work from the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility. The new railway would enable journey times between Warszawa and Wien to be reduced to around 4 h, while journeys between Wien and Katowice would be cut to around 2 h 20 min. Katowice – Ostrava could be completed in as little as 40 min, compared to more than 2 h today, usually with at least one change. This article first appeared in the July 2026 issue of Railway Gazette International See also Subscribe to gain access to all news Already have a subscription? Log in. Choose your subscription Considering a corporate subscription? Contact us to find out more.