This year I had a chance encounter with Carl Franz in Cleveland at a Midwest Railway Preservation Society open house. He eventually mentioned the work he does with the steam program in Wolsztyn, Poland, and I shared with him the fact that I spent 8 weeks at the Firestone plant there putting in a rubber calender control system, and didn't learn of the Wolsztyn Experience until I got home. He indicated that he had open spots this year if I wanted a second chance at driving Polish steam, which I did.
For those of you that may not have heard of the Wolsztyn Experience, it is a program ran by an English gentlemen Howard Jones and Nigel Fitt where you can pay to run and fire the regularly scheduled steam-powered commuter train between Wolsztyn and Poznan.
I left town Satuday 8/31, and woke up on the plane in Berlin on the morning of 9/1. I had time to kill before my train to Poland, so I went to the German Technical Museum in Berlin. This museum showcases planes, trains, and automobiles, as well as a historic brewery, and a computer and electronics museum. I will save the pictures (for now), but this is a highly recommended stop with a lot to see.
I got a ticket for the Berlin-Warsaw express operated by PKP (Polish National Railway). The Berlin Hauptbahnhof (main station) is incredible, with two levels of platforms set at a right angle to each other, and a few levels in between the platform levels for ticketing, shopping, food courts, car/bus transportation, etc.
Here's the main entrance to the station.
DB Passenger train on the lower platforms, taken from the upper platforms.
Here's one of the upper platforms full of people waiting for the next Inter-City Express (ICE).
Once on board my train, I was shocked by the smooth ride and the speed at which we were moving shortly after leaving Berlin.
The train dropped me off at Zbaszynek, Poland, where retired steam driver Janos picked me up to taxi me to Howard's place in Wolsztyn. Here are a few pictures of the living room there, and some of the items of interest on the walls. Howard has a few rooms upstairs that he uses for visiting guests, with a stocked kitchen and living room downstairs. People in Poland walk and bike a lot, and the entire town is very accessible with walkways and sidewalks almost everywhere.
Pretty easy to find from the street, his is the only house in Wolsztyn with semaphore arms bolted to the front.
The format of the experience is that each participant pairs with a driver for each run. Andre is considered the best both in terms of teaching spirit and English abilities, so Monday being it was my first morning I was paired with him. I ran from Wolsztyn to Poznan, with the train leaving Wolsztyn around 5:30 AM and arriving in Poznan about 2 hours later. I've driven a few light steam locomotives before as part of "throttle time" events (NKP 765, Flagg Coal 75), but needless to say it just doesn't compare. With a train behind you and speeds reaching upwards of 55 MPH at times, the experience was extremely thrilling. The hardest parts of driving were managing the steam chest pressure when starting in an attempt to prevent wheel slip, and knowing when to hook her up according to your particular mentor's preferences. The locomotive has a screw reverser, with a scale marked off every 10 percent of cutoff. The crew never wanted you to go higher than 60% when starting, and only a couple of times did we get below 30%. The lowest I saw was about 25% when trying to make up time back to Wolsztyn. The locomotive uses an old #6 brake which was very easy to modulate with our little 2-coach train, and with some direction from the driver behind me it was easy to make precise station stops. Over the next week I caught mostly afternoon trips, with a morning trip on Friday. Determining who drives and who fires first is between you and the other person you're paired with for the run, but typically newcomers get the better of the two Polish mentors.
Here are a couple of short videos, shot by my companion in steam Chris. The first shows me executing a good start out of the station, the second shows me giving a little too much throttle which resulting in a slip and the usual heckling and motions of vodka shots. My mentor for the day was Piotr who is very particular about when and how far to hook up the reverser, and I found it best to just wait for his commands.
This is Andre in the cab of our locomotive for the week, OL49-class #69.
Here's Bob running back to Wolsztyn. This is the Wolsztyn Experience's 17th year of operation, and this was the 16th year Bob has come to run the train.
This is the other gentleman I got to run with, Chris, who lives in England. Due to his proximity he comes whenever he can, which at times is multiple times a year.
My week in Wolsztyn was the first chance I ever had to fire a locomotive. The route is short enough and has numerous stops, so most of the firing on the first day was done in the station at a stand-still. Even then, getting the proper scoop motion to get coal to the front of the firebox was a trick. Andre only instructed me "3 left, 3 right, 3 center" - but this resulted in him having to fix my fire a few times. I was also charged with working the fireman's injector, which was done at their command for the first part of the week until I got the hang of things. The supervising fireman handled most everything else, including adjusting the accessory valves, wetting down the coal as necessary, adjusting the blower, etc. Things got trickier on Tuesday and Wednesday when the blower stopped working, and firing had to be done with the throttle open - meaning we were at speed. Needless to say I put almost as much coal on the cab floor as I put in the firebox. I got a lot of good instruction from Andre and Henry the first two days, even though the language barrier was substantial and we were fighting the blower issue, and by Wednesday I fired Poznan to Wolsztyn and Henry gave me a thumbs up at the end without him having had to touch the coal scoop once. That was extremely rewarding.
This is the OL49's back head. The Polish are very resourceful - notice the "light shade" fashioned out of a beer can on the left directly above the firebox door handle? The crews seem to universally like vodka and piwo (Polish for "beer", pronounced "PEE-vough")? Every piece of coal on the cab floor results in calls for beer/vodka, and they ask you to go drinking with them almost nightly after the run. Overall a pretty friendly bunch.
For those of you unfamiliar with Polish steam, I'll save you the need to Google the basics. The OL49 class of locomotives are 2-6-2 superheated passenger units designed in 1949 and built between 1951 and 1954 by Fablok in Chrzanów, Poland. They are standard gauge (4' 8.5"), weigh about 51 tons, have 69" drivers, a boiler rated at around 225 PSI, and can develop almost 28,000 lbs tractive effort from their 25" pistons. They also have a face only a mother could love, in my humble opinion (and that's coming from a guy who loves the NKP Mars Light look!).
Here is OL49-69 resting in Poznan, about to take the two-coach train back to Wolsztyn. She is currently the only hot steam locomotive in the Wolsztyn shed, although I was told there are two others currently being restored including another OL49-class.
The train we hauled all week was relatively small - only two coaches. Both with steam heat, which we used on a couple of the morning runs with the temperature in the lower 60's.
Since you spend only half the day on the train, you are left with plenty of time to enjoy the culture. With a 1.5 hour layover in Poznan there is time to get out into the city if you choose, or you can stay with the crew as they turn the locomotive and prepare it for the return trip. Every day except one I ventured into the city to grab some water for the return run and explore a little. Here is a picture of the old Poznan station from street level. A new more modern station is being built directly to the east of this one and is partially open.
Wolsztyn is a charming little town, with some shopping, a few great places to eat, and plenty of watering holes. My favorites were the Palac hotel's restaurant (Steak Tartar is excellent), Zielona Prowansja (excellent Zurek, which is a hearty Polish rye stew), Pico Bello and Powozownia for pizza, and the walk-up ice cream shop on the square. Here is a picture of the square in Wolsztyn on a beautiful late summer day.
...and a couple shots of the biggest church in town...
This is a map of the quaint little town of Wolsztyn. In the legend, #1 is the steam museum location. If you follow the road it is on straight up you will see a penned "X" on the right side of the street - that's Howard's house.
Back to the trains. Lets start with the train schedule between Wolsztyn and Poznan.
You'll notice that steam makes up only 4 of the 16 trips each day. The rest are pulled by these nice little diesel 2-car units - not sure if they're electric or hydraulic drive. We would typically meet one each way on our travels between Wolsztyn and Poznan.
The yard in Wolsztyn is quite large for the amount of traffic there. I was told it was constructed during the communist years, so money and need were not really the ruling factors. Notice their love of expensive track work - a LOT of double-slip switches!
On Thursday I pulled my last evening run, and by chance I drove out and fired back. By this point in the week I had the firing routine down and was able to keep a very good head of steam, meaning I had a few moments to enjoy the scenery. Here are some of the fruits of that down-time in between stations.
So long as you kept half an eye on what you were doing and kept a good head of steam, they didn't mind you playing with your camera for a minute here and there. If I was the only one watching the boiler obviously this wouldn't happen - but on a potentially once-in-a-lifetime experience with the *real* fireman looking over your shoulder, you bet I was reaching for it whenever possible!
Now if you are at this point and REALLY want more - I took some GoPro (small digital camera) footage in the cab. You can find it on my Youtube channel, but I'll refrain from posting them here - one of firing, one of driving, each almost 30 minutes long.
If you haven't heard of the Wolsztyn Experience, I hope this post has inspired you to look into it. I'm just glad I got the chance to return to Wolsztyn 5 years later and fulfill a life-long dream of running a steam locomotive. It was - well - quite the experience!
