Our Reader asked us to publicize the matter. On Monday, December 28, she was sitting with other passengers in the waiting room at the PKP railway station in Bolesławiec. She arrived at the station 20 minutes before the scheduled departure of the train to Jelenia Góra. “The train was supposed to arrive at 3:20 p.m.,” the woman says. It arrived 10 minutes later but departed without the passengers from Bolesławiec.

Why? The arrival of the delayed train was not announced at all. The train departed before the passengers realized that it was their train standing at the platform. “I have been travelling by rail regularly for five years,” says the Reader. “This was not the first case of this kind,” she adds.

The passengers had to wait about an hour for the next train. This was not the only inconvenience to which they were subjected. The next train, departing at 4:27 p.m., is operated by a different company. “Some of us have monthly passes, but we still had to buy a ticket for the next train,” the woman explains. “The fact that the previous train was not announced is scandalous negligence. Passengers are not required to stand in the cold and watch to see whether their train happens to be arriving at the station.”

“We are investigating this matter,” says Mirosław Kruszelnicki, deputy head of the Operations Section in Węgliniec. “We are considering various possibilities. Malfunctions do happen. The failure to announce the arrival of the train to Jelenia Góra may have been connected with a failure of the line-block system or one of the loudspeakers at the station.”

According to the deputy head of the Operations Section, the incident was not caused by human error. “It is difficult to call this a staff error. Trains are announced by computer; people do not announce them,” he explains. “The announcement of the train’s arrival was heard at the Bolesławiec railway traffic control centre,” he adds.

Why passengers in the waiting room did not hear it remains unknown for now. It is known, however, that the malfunction was not repaired, because the situation repeated itself on December 29. “Couldn’t the dispatcher have announced the train himself?” the Reader asks indignantly. “We are trying to prevent such situations,” Kruszelnicki emphasizes. “We apologize to PKP customers.”

We will return to this matter.

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