By Joe Grossman. Photos by the authors except as noted.
Originally published September 14, 2006.

Fifty years after their use fell off dramatically; there is still a place where it’s possible to operate a steam locomotive in regular daily service. I have just returned from Wolsztyn, Poland, where I spent a week running and firing steam locomotives hauling scheduled, commercial passenger trains with paying customers in the seats. I was considered an official student engineer and ran or fired about 450 miles in the course of the week. This is probably the only scheduled standard-gauge steam-powered passenger service anywhere in the world. It is certainly the only place where complete novices, not railroad employees, can run steam engines in regular service. I had never heard of Wolsztyn before, but I was excited to have real hands-on experience with steam. How was I able to take part in this incredible adventure?

The opportunity to run these trains is made possible by Howard Jones, an Englishman who now lives in Wolsztyn. He has organized the “Wolsztyn Experience” for people like me who want to run steam trains. He has an agreement with PKP, the Polish national railroad company, where he pays them to allow his guests to run trains under the supervision of experienced engineers. The crews also get paid extra for putting up with us, and they were uniformly patient and helpful. However, I don’t speak any foreign languages, and this made me a bit nervous. Fortunately, the crews know some English and are very good at pantomime. It would have been nice to know some Polish, but we were able to get by without it.

Wolsztyn is a town of 14,000 in a rural area in western Poland. It is the terminus of two rail lines: One runs 47 km (29 miles) to Leszno, a small city of 60,000. The other runs 81 km (50 miles) to Poznan, a large city of over a million. We ran trains on both lines. The Poznan steam trains are pulled by 2-6-2 Prairie-types, and Leszno trains by 2-8-2 Mikados. The trains use familiar Westinghouse air brake systems.

Our adventure started in March 2005, when I read an article on the Wolsztyn steam experience in Trains. I knew I had to make this trip, so I called up my friend Steve who was enthusiastic and agreed to join me. Due to various family obligations, we didn’t make our trip until more than a year later in June 2006. We began our trip by flying to Berlin. We had opted for the complete travel package the Wolsztyn Experience offers between Berlin and Wolsztyn. We had tickets on the Berlin-Warsaw express to Rzepin, the first stop in Poland. If nothing else, make sure to eat in the dining car! Cheap, and the food is wonderful! At Rzepin we had to buy tickets on the local to Zbaszynek. To accomplish this, we were provided with a 20 zloty bill (a zloty is worth about 30 cents) and a note in Polish to the ticket agent, as well as a printed timetable so we could track the stations. At Zbaszynek we were met by a car and driven to Wolsztyn. The travel arrangements worked perfectly and put us at ease.

Six people can be accommodated each week in this program. There are also some shorter programs available. We stayed in the guesthouse where Howard lives. Not only is Howard a born bed-and-breakfast host, he is also a fount of railroad information. His house has room for four guests. There are also two rooms adjacent to the roundhouse. I recommend Howard’s guesthouse if you have the choice.

On Sunday night Howard has a short orientation for the participants. For instance, grade crossing whistle posts are triangles and you give one medium-length toot. British terminology prevails; for instance our “throttle” is their “regulator.” Each evening we got our assignments for the next day. Five days were included. On our day off, we opted to run on the nearby narrow gauge steam line (0.75 meter or 29 inches) at a nominal extra charge. The article in Trains mentioned steam-hauled freight, but this option is no longer available. Also, the article implied to me that the engines had automatic stokers. Some of them did at one time, but they don’t now. So, part of the fireman’s job is to shovel coal (Shoveling coal for students is optional, the regular fireman will do it if you don’t want to).

In Poland the engineer (“engine driver” in British parlance) and fireman are the same craft. They usually switch off jobs at each run. There were two students on each run. Steve and I were assigned together. Students alternate being firemen and engineers.

On our first run, we wondered how we would be eased into running the train. The regular engineer started the train and ran it out of the yard. Then, to my surprise, he got out of his seat (the train was moving), gestured to me to take it, and said only, “You drive.”

As student engineers, we found braking to be the trickiest part. However, we didn’t cause any flat wheels; the real engineers were good teachers. Interestingly enough, the reverser is a hand-operated wheel that turns a screw and is often pretty hard to turn. Sometimes I had to use both hands. The throttles, especially on the Mikados, took strength to move; I had to put my considerable weight into opening them. If, however, you open the throttle too abruptly you get wheel slip; the crew showed us how to avoid it.

As fireman you have to shovel coal, run the injector, and run the boiler blowdown valve. The real fireman will tell you when. Aside from being hard work, shoveling the coal requires that you get the coal correctly distributed in the firebox. This requires learning how to look at the fire, which we had not mastered by the end of the week. As a result, the fireman was rarely satisfied with our efforts and had to add coal himself to build a good fire. The firebox doors are manually operated. You open them with a lever, shovel until the fireman tells you to stop, then close the door. Running the injector requires a knack; if you open the valve too quickly it somehow doesn’t work and you have to close it and start over. The real fireman was very helpful here.

One unexpected part of the job was revealed at the end of the first day’s run. The crew tossed clean rags to Steve and me as we were leaving the engine. We were puzzled but soon enlightened. The rags were to clean the grime off the red and white drivers and side rods! At first we thought this was a hazing ritual for new students, but the regular crew took rags and cleaned with us.

Right now there are six steam engines in service. There are many others that could be steamed up if needed. The real problem is a shortage of qualified steam crews. The agreement with the Polish national railroad expires at the end of 2007. Howard believes there will be no problem renewing the agreement, but it is not yet a done deal at the time of this writing.

Steam only covers some of the service on the two lines out of Wolsztyn. Other runs are covered by new diesel multiple unit-type cars or by regular diesel-hauled trains. Steve was interested in running a diesel. We were told it might be possible, but it was too late to arrange in the time we had left. So, if you do this trip and want to run a diesel also, you could ask in advance and see if it can be arranged.

The trip cost us around $1,500 each plus airfare. It is sold out for this year but space is available for 2007. The cost varies with the time of year. The American agent for the Wolsztyn Experience is Rannoch Adventures, and we found them very friendly and helpful. Most participants are British, but people come from all over the world. It seems that not many Americans have yet to discover the wonders of Wolsztyn. Perhaps to Americans, it might seem too good to be true. It is a real time warp, going back to a time where steam engines are used to provide regular daily transportation. It’s the best vacation I ever took.

About the Author
Joe Grossman, 63, lives in Rockland County, NY and works as a database administrator for a large financial institution. Born and lived most of his life in New York City, Joe is a lifelong railfan, interested in railroad history, American history and politics. “I was the first kid in my neighborhood to have ridden the entire New York subway system,” boasts Grossman. This is his first RAILROAD.NET byline.