When I first started teaching in Poland, my students often asked me what I thought about the country. I once answered that I really liked the train system. I thought it was great that there are train connections to nearly every city and town in Poland, and that I can live a car-free life.
They stared in response. “You like the Polish train system?” They couldn’t believe me. “Polish trains are terrible!”
I guess my expectations were set to a pretty low standard, coming from America. Rating a country’s transportation system depends, in large part, on whether or not there is one.
The more I rode Polish trains, though, the more I came to understand my students’ perspective. The Polish train system is in a hazy, transitory state that breeds extremes. Take the line from Warsaw to Berlin, for example, and you’ll probably end up in a new, plastic-coated wagon with matching upholstery and carpet. You’ll be directed to seats with numbers, all of which will be facing the same direction, for a smooth and organized ride, punctuated with informative bi-lingual announcements on a clear new loudspeaker.
Take a line from Wroclaw to Katowice, on the other hand, and you’ll get a clunky wagon older than you, divided into 6-seater compartments – two booth-like benches facing each other – and closed to the outside world by heavy, air-tight sliding doors. You’ll develop a conditioned reflex when you hear those vacuum seals forced open (the rhythmic, clanky wheels will suddenly amplify) to pretend you’re sleeping, so the group of loud teenagers who just boarded won’t invade your compartment. You’ll feel the grime in the air and notice the dark gunk caked in the corners of the small table underneath the window.
You’ll learn where to focus your eyes so you’re not inadvertently staring at the person facing you from the other side of the tiny compartment. You’ll get used to sleeping sitting straight so that, in the event that you’ve picked one of the wagons without armrests, you don’t sleep-slump onto the shoulder of the person next to you (you’ll even sleep for multiple hours on-end, on an overnight ride).
You’ll learn how to read the signs marking the stations while in motion to keep tabs on where you are and how long it’ll be until you need to get off (even if there was a loudspeaker, it would be crackly and incoherent). You’ll learn how to heave heavy bags onto the high luggage racks while maintaining your balance against the train’s jerky, grinding brakes.
You’ll figure out how to use a bathroom without making contact with any of its surface area. And you’ll learn not to be surprised when you’re delayed for three hours in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, because someone thought that cutting the electrical cables at a crossing would be a great practical joke.
I loved those trains.
Not because of the trains themselves – I once dropped my small USB underneath my seat and retrieved it covered in black grime at least a decade old.
Rather, I loved those trains because of the atmosphere they evoke, and the culture they embody. I came to associate something distinctly Polish with the dinner spreads people filled the tiny compartment tables with – the bread rolls and cheese and sausage dinners that passengers packed on the long haul rides. There’s something cozy about picnicking in a tiny train compartment. There’s also something cozy about finding ways to cuddle on an overnight ride.
And something distinctly communal about the experience of negotiating limited space with 6 strangers, waking every few hours to a hip or an elbow or a shoulder sheepishly being pulled away, and the shared commiserations upon waking in the morning to kinked necks and numb legs.
Communal compartments also lead to some of the best in-the-moment conversations, interactions both brief and deep, born of paths that cross in limited constraints of time and space.
But Polish trains are changing. On one of my last train rides in Poland, from Wroclaw to the small town of Walbrzych, my compartment-mate entered, stopped in his tracks and asked, “Is this first-class?” Nope, these are just brand new seats.
Train stations are following suite. The train station in Wroclaw has been under construction for over a year now, preparing for the massive influx of visitors who will arrive for the Euro 2012 football games. They finally removed the interior tarps during my last week in Wroclaw, forcing me to stop in my tracks too at the sight of the impressive floor-to-ceiling glass panels and the shiny new floor.
The simultaneous swell of momentary pride in my little Polish city’s progress coupled with a strange sense of nostalgia.
I bet that if I were to return to Poland in ten years, all the old Soviet-era trains will be gone.
