Poland

May 20-29, 2006

2001 ex Kraków 107, 2000 ex Szczecin LXXI, 1979 ex 117, 1966 ex Warszawa 607. Jeff Erlitz photo (May 20, 2006)

The ERA is proud to announce its 8th international tour. During nine days of travel, Tramways in Poland will cover 10 tram systems, extensive interurban networks in Lodz, Krakow and Lower Silesia, a suburban light railway and a subway line of Russian design in Warsaw, two transportation museums, a trolleybus network in Gdyna, and a S-bahn system in Gdansk. We will explore each city utilizing a variety of historic or unique vehicles. There will be an option to visit regular service Poznan-Wolztyn steam railroad, as well as an option to spend the tenth day in Wroclaw, formerly Breslau, which has a lovely tram network and a tram museum.

Polish tramways constitute a diverse assortment of urban, rural and interurban traction, century-old lines through old historic districts, dilapidated trackage in formerly influential industrial areas, as well as modern high-speed lines. These are roamed side-by-side by various local equipment (most of it of PCC origin), renowned second-hand equipment from Germany, Austria and The Netherlands, modern low-floor LRVs and prehistoric 2-axle trams. Each city maintains its own historic fleet of Polish, German, Austrian or Belgian cars, some of them from the turn of the previous century.

Poland is a large country, thus, in order to optimize our program, we will be staying in three consecutive hotel bases in Warsaw, in Elblag in the north, and in Katowice in the heart of Silesia in the south. Hotels were carefully chosen to provide a blend of comfort and convenience. Hotel transfers will be by comfortable intercity buses, which will provide door-to-door service between hotels, as well as an opportunity to visit additional tram systems while traveling between our bases. As we make stopovers, our luggage will remain on the bus at all times. All other intercity travel from and to our hotel bases will be done by PKP Polish National Railways.

The formal part of the tour will begin in Warsaw on Saturday, May 20th, with a late afternoon tram excursion. The last excursion will take place in Krakow on Sunday evening, May 28th. Our hotel in Katowice will be paid for until check out time on Monday, May 29th. A return to Warsaw will be by individual choice (frequent express trains departures). International flights are also available from the Katowice-Krakow airport.

Land arrangements will cost only $1,195 with double occupancy ($300 single supplement), and will include:

Air transportation is by individual choice. Orbis Polish Travel Bureau working closely with the LOT Polish National Airline is recommend: 800-876-7247 or 212-867-5011. In January a round trip ticket from New York to Poland was quoted at $880 including taxes. Other suggested carriers: Lufthansa 800-645-3880 quoted $960; United 800-241-6522 quoted $905 using Lufthansa equipment; Finnair 800-950-4768 or 212-499-9000 quoted $732. For questions call 917-714-7087 or use our Contact Us page.

F Facebook

Created in 2011 by Philip Hom, our Facebook page is the place to go for the latest news from ERA members.

T Twitter

Our frequently updated Twitter feed is written by Alexander ‘Sasha’ Ivanoff, a contributing editor to the Bulletin.

Y YouTube

Fascinating member videos, including some of our monthly meetings, can be watched on our YouTube channel.

I Issuu

Every back issue since 2002 of the Bulletin and previews of Headlights since 1996 can be found on our Issuu page.

S Search