A Regular Train Trip

Mateusz Tymoszewski

I had wanted to sleep, but sleep hadn’t come. The noises, the thumping sounds, were just too loud to let me relax. The thick and hard concrete walls seemed unable to stop the sounds at all. Even my noise cancellation headphones – usually just enough – weren’t able to mute them out. So I didn’t sleep at all. Not until the thumping upstairs stopped. When I checked the clock, it was already 5:00 am. I had two hours left before I had to get up for work. Fortunately, with the company of silence, sleep came almost immediately.

At least I could think about doing something related to work. I’d earned a reputation. From time to time, it was okay for days like this to happen – days when I would do next-to-nothing.

Soon after I got out of bed, though, it quickly became clear that today would be a day I did nothing. I went to the kitchen to treat myself to some coffee, just to keep me going through the inevitable working hours. And that was when I realized the electricity was out. That was also when I appreciated the large number of curse and swear words in Polish. I needed them all. The coffee was supposed to be the thing keeping me functional. The only thing I was really counting on after that bastard upstairs didn’t let me sleep. I quickly checked the board at the entrance to my blok. Indeed, I saw a notice about some electric and general maintenance work planned for the whole week, not ending until 4:00 pm each day – the hour my workday was supposed to end.

I grabbed my phone to let my colleagues know that I would be unavailable today and would need to shift my shifts. An unread email had just arrived from one of them. I opened it and saw that they were planning an integration trip for my whole branch this week. I sighed in relief. It basically meant paid vacation in rather luxurious conditions. The only downside to it all was that I had to see and bear the same people I see and bear every day. Not that they were particularly bad. I just don’t like getting too familiar with my coworkers. This way it’s way easier for me to maintain a healthy work-life balance, which, in my case, meant not thinking about work after I finished it. But it was still better than sitting here without any electricity and listening to the sounds of child abuse.

It was late summer, so at least the nights were bearable and cold enough for the air to somewhat cool down. Since I couldn’t do anything today, I decided to get a head start. I would enjoy the trip. It was a rather long ride from my hometown to the sea. I would go to the station in an hour or so, before the sun and heat scorched everything and made life unbearable. I guessed the train ride would take me almost the entire day – in the best-case scenario. If the trains weren’t delayed.

When I reached the station, I was welcomed by the big letters at the top of the building reading DWORZEC PKP. I had to double-check the e-schedule – on which I based the tickets I would buy – against the regular one hanging in the hallway of the dworzec. Theoretically they should be the same. But sometimes something was off, misaligned.

Next, I had to check the electronic table of arrivals and departures. It was the only thing that could keep you informed about your train if you missed an announcement through the low-quality speakers. And missing such announcements was the norm, since the speakers were drowned out by the passing trains and the murmuring of people crowded into the hallway.

But, to my own surprise, it looked like there were no delays. I couldn’t remember the last time a train I had to take wasn’t delayed. Of course, by no means, was it like with the famous Japanese trains that pull in within a few seconds of the estimated time of arrival. Here, as long as the delay wasn’t more than 5, maybe 10 minutes, it wouldn’t be mentioned. Everyone was accustomed to that.

Nonetheless, I was still afraid that the train showing up at the station would be one of the worst ones. They could also arrive on time now and then. Easily distinguishable from the newer ones, they were rusty red, literally square and had these old-school, round reflectors at the front.

Since trains just roll from dworzec to dworzec, I wasn’t as afraid of them technically as I was of their interiors, their cars. All the inside walls were made out of metal covered by some kind of cheap linoleum with a wood-like patterns that very quickly faded, developing brown stains with some faux wood-esque remains in the corners. And these walls, in some twisted way, matched the cheap, trashy plastic passenger seats.

These red and ugly plastic seats could get hot enough to burn your hand if they were exposed to the sunlight for too long. Usually, it meant that if the train travelled long enough without taking any turns, one side of the car would then become barren, as no one could withstand the burning hot plastic. Only the toughest of babcias, who still remembered the “good old communist times,” as they called them, were able to withstand the deadly warmth – the same way they were able to gossip in the scorching summer sun. Because of this, the number of available seats roughly halved in the afternoon. And that was one of the reasons some people preferred to travel with the night trains.

Although the red and ugly plastic seats could burn you, they also tended to fill the whole car with this strange, oddly specific aroma. It wasn’t really a stench or an odour. It was just this unmistakeable smell that filled every one of these older trains. It also tended to mix with the dusty and uncleaned, ever working air heaters.

And they were a thing entirely unto itself, placed under the seats and windows, just a few centimetres above the ground. They kept on running throughout the whole summer, as if winter could return at any second and the insides of the cars had to be prepared for it. In the winter, when they weren’t in some kind of low mode, they got super hot and super loud. The former wasn’t all that bad, especially during those colder days. But the thing was that they always kept working at 100%, even when the cars were full and it was already hot enough inside. The damp air condensated on every window, but they wouldn’t stop running. Not even when there was so little space inside that some of the passengers had to put their feet on it, which was a grievous mistake since the heaters could get hot enough to melt the rubber soles of their shoes. I actually saw it happen a few times.

But usually the only thing they burned was the dust accumulated inside. Since no one cleaned them, they could almost clog with all the dirt they gathered from the ground. But after the summer always came that moment when someone would turn them back on at full blast, and the accumulated dust would become an odour of something mildly burned, mixing well with the smell of the red plastic seats.

The final smell, which the PKP aroma consisted of, was the overall humidity and body warmth. Most of the time, at least one of the co-passengers was… untidy, to put it mildly. Filling the whole car with an odour of days-old sweat and dirty clothes. The only thing worse than that was when such a co-passenger was paired with a babcia sturdy enough to bear the heat, but not enough to let you open a window. Those were the ones afraid of any stronger draft that could result in getting a fever. And no amount of persuasion could ease her stubbornness – just the way it sometimes is with the elderly.

But sometimes you could count on the common sense of the PKP workers – the conductors, to be specific. Since they walked back and forth through the train, they sometimes intervened in such matters and opened the windows on their own. And if confronted by the draft-averse babcias, they would offer them other seats. But somehow, probably due to the official PKP uniform, they could utterly end the disputes.

The other reason babcias were one of the worst co-passengers possible was that they had this strange habit of taking off their shoes and putting their feet on the opposite seats. It was even more obnoxious when it happened in the InterCity trains, where dozens of small overhead screens spaced out above the rows reminded all the travellers never to do so, since it was unhygienic and unpleasant for the other passengers. But the babcias just didn’t care.

Quite contrary to my fears and experiences, the train that rolled into the station was nothing like the one I was expecting. It wasn’t rusty red but white and wasn’t square but slim and kind of aerodynamic. I realised that I would be lucky enough to find myself in one of these new Regio trains that have been replacing the old red ones over the last few years.

There was no PKP smell – just a gentle, cold breeze of air conditioning. All the seats were covered in soft, rather clean fabric and the inside of the car was as spacious as it could be for such a small train. All the windows had curtains installed so there was no way for the sunrays to land on one’s face if they didn’t wish to.

It raised my hopes that maybe not all the travel would be that bad. This, however, changed when I switched trains in the middle – the one that was to take me straight to the sea. The stopover was in a city somewhat larger than my hometown. I had never been to it and was expecting some bigger dworzec with at least a café I could spend my time in. But I was wrong.

This dworzec seemed to be some relic of the old communist era, the kind the babcias were so fond of – the walls and floors were almost black from all the dirt accumulated throughout the years and some of the walls were in such bad condition that they were substituted with ones from corrugated metal sheets. Not only did they look as ugly as possible, but they also quickly accumulated summer heat. They resembled air heaters way more than they did walls.

Since my trip hadn’t tired me out so far, I decided to spend some time in the city – I still had to wait nearly two hours for my train to depart. Also, since the second half of my trip to the sea would take me over six hours at best, if there weren’t any delays, I needed to eat something more nourishing than the awful, pre-packaged sandwiches packed in cheap plastic boxes with a green reptile logo at the nearby store. I hated them. The only enticing part was the filling on the package cover. The bread itself was dry and tasted more of artificial flavors than a properly baked roll. Nonetheless, even if I had been able to swallow these abominations of a lunch, they were still not enough to get me through the lengthy train ride.

The only alternative left in the near proximity of the dworzec was an ugly kebab kiosk with dirty walls that were almost falling apart. Although all the kids swarming around it were kind of inviting, the stench of both over- and undercooked meat pushed the thought of going there out of my head.

And, quite to the contrary of what I was expecting, there were no other places that could offer me any food. Only then did I remember that this is what the food industry looked like now, after the corona pandemic. It was nearly non-existent. Most eateries just went bankrupt, unable to survive. And the worst part was that there was no one to blame for it. Such things just happened.

I checked available places I could reach in a reasonable amount of time and saw that the only ones with decent online reviews and a serving time short enough to let me eat at a comfortable pace were so far from the dworzec that it would be better to just order a taxi. Since I was slowly running out of time, I decided to hesitate no longer and caught a ride.

Fortunately, the driver wasn’t chatty at all. I could relax from all the train and city noise for a couple of minutes. It meant a lot, especially since I had to spend the rest of my day in a crowded, loud-as-hell train. I gazed out the car window to see if the city looked as bad as the dworzec.

Unfortunately, it did. The old, smog-gray walls with faded peeling paint exuded almost the same feel. All the devastated tenements that were only pretty before World War II were still as devastated as they were right after it. I heard they were sold to the private sector in some cities. These investors then renovated them into luxurious buildings with luxurious apartments. But that wasn’t the case here. These were social state buildings with flats for the poorest, with very little interest in their potential beauty, miraculous architecture and wonderful past. All the facades, despite the omnipresent cracks and nearly century-old paint peeling from them, were filled with primitive graffiti, urine stains and god only knows what else.

At the entries to these buildings, you could usually meet a gentleman or two smoking cigarettes and drinking beer all day. Rarely did they move. The only reason they did was to grab another bottle or pack of smokes. Although drinking in public was prohibited, the police didn’t care about them at all since they did no harm to anyone and just minded their own business.

I closed my eyes, happily returning to my hometown in thought, glad it didn’t look like this anymore. Maybe except the communist bloks in my neighborhood. Some towns, like mine, had been lucky enough to collect enough funds from various sources to address such matters over the last few years.

I was ripped out of my thoughts when the driver suddenly hit the brakes. The whole car was filled with all sorts of curses for a few seconds. This was followed by the driver saying something like, “Hitting a cyclist would be a pleasure, but hitting a scootlist should be everyone’s duty.”

Only then did I see a few kids speeding on electronic, rented scooters through the pedestrian crossing, clearly demanding the right of way. Since I didn’t drive a car, they usually weren’t as much of a pain for me as they clearly were for the driver. Yet I knew they were a major problem in the bigger cities, such as this one. But I hated them too for a different reason.

I couldn’t remember if I had ever seen a scooter parked appropriately. The only ones I’d encountered were left stranded in the most random places – the middle of the pavement or street, under the entry to a building, like some sort of deadly trap, or strewn randomly on some public green space or near flower stands.

Yet the worst, and most dangerous, were not the ones lying on the ground, but the ones moving around. Scootlists, as the driver called them, had this awful trait of perpetually speeding and passing by close enough to almost hit you. Every single time.

When all the kids had passed through the crossing, we went straight to my destination without any further surprises. In the restaurant, I was impressed by the quickness and overall competence of the  staff. Maybe, after all, this city was changing, but at its own pace? Nonetheless, I saved quite some time and was able to return to the dworzec on foot.

I once again passed by the ugly, squalid buildings and half-drunk gentlemen stinking of sweat and cigarettes. The stench reminded me of the elevator in my blok. And The Stain visible from my balcony. My face twisted in disgust. As if seeing it, they gave me uneasy, stern looks while I strode by. One spat on the ground, but this might just as well have been from the cigarette as me.

When I entered the dworzec, I still had a few minutes left. I felt rather content with the little sightseeing trip I had just returned from. But my mood took a nosedive when I saw that my train was delayed. By a whole two hours…

Feeling helpless, I tried to find some at least half-comfortable place to sit out the wait. But I couldn’t find one. All the benches, both outside and inside, were occupied by sleeping drunk hobos or some shady men giving me even more shady looks. I didn’t want to draw attention, since I surely wasn’t welcome with my luggage. I decided it would be best to just wander around the neighborhood for the next couple hours…

I was really glad when my train finally arrived. I boarded it, leaving the ugly, reeking dworzec behind. I was also glad that I would be travelling on an InterCity train this time, instead of a regular Regio one. The thing about InterCity trains was that they didn’t stop at every station, so they usually reached their destination faster. Also, every passenger would be assigned a seat, so there was no chance of overcrowding, which was an essential part of traveling with the Regio trains.

Overall, the InterCity trains were just better and a little more reliable. Albeit also much more expensive. And reliability was not guaranteed, since they travelled much longer distances, so they had many more opportunities to be delayed somewhere in the middle, as I had just seen.

They were also equipped with some conveniences: air conditioners that worked only half the time and a WARS car. That was an abbreviation for WAgony Restauracyjne i Sypialniane. It meant they provided eating and sleeping space for travelers. Essentially, the dining cars were super expensive restaurants on wheels with rather bad dishes. So if anyone ever decided to buy anything there, it was either a bottle of water or cup of coffee or tea.

But they also sold all kinds of sweets, chocolate bars and other similar stuff. There was no way to forget about that fact, because once in a while someone from the WARS staff had to go through the whole train with a trolley filled with snacks, shouting out what they sold. Since it was rare for anyone to ever buy anything from them, I liked to think that these trolleys existed only to piss off the passengers, because they could barely squeeze in between the seats. If anyone’s arm or knee stuck out just a tiny bit into the passageway, they could be sure that the trolley would hit them. If anyone was unlucky enough to get up from their seat to go to the toilet while the trolley was in motion, they had to either squeeze into a nearby seat – occupied or not – or get rammed by the WARS worker, since they rarely stopped.

The car I had bought myself a seat in was rather empty, so at last I could zone out and let time flow by. And before I knew it, I had fallen asleep and only woke up to the sound of the train braking at my final destination. I hurriedly grabbed my belongings and stepped onto the platform, feeling a cool fresh sea breeze I hadn’t felt in a long time.