Railway Poland - The borders (or, Styki Polski) (MID-UPDATE)
(Currently being updated for 2025/6)
Poland's inner rail borders, created by the execution of the handover of responsibility for regional rail to the voivodeships, and also information on the state of the outer rail borders. Feel free to click on each border and read the notes, too!
This map is a remix of Jon Worth's #CrossBorderRail All The Borders map (https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-all-the-borders_935041), compiled by HaTetsu (https://mastodon.com.pl/@HaTetsu) and mostly up-to-date as of September 2025. It was inspired by short discussions of the problems of French rail regionalization which are in some ways even worse than Poland's despite (or because?) the operation being almost all SNCF.
I swear it's not a challenge, but the borders are colored according to whether Jon's passed through there as part of the #CrossBorderRail journeys, as on the original.
Lines that only existed in wartime are excluded, as may have been a couple minor ones dismantled long ago. Voivodeships and surrounding regions are represented with ISO letter codes where possible, not because they are well known, but because they are easily checked, short, and mostly unambiguous once learned - the exceptions are Czechia and Ukraine which do not use letter codes, for Czechia I used license plate codes prepended with CZ-.
KEY TO TRAIN OPERATORS (in case of cross-border cooperations where one operator provides the actual rolling stock and the other mostly support and license, the 'minor' operator is in parentheses after a space):
IC - PKP Intercity
RJ - RegioJet
LEx - Leo Express
PR - Polregio
AR - Arriva RP
KW - Koleje Wielkopolskie
KD - Koleje Dolnośląskie
ŁKA - Łódzka Kolej Aglomeracyjna
KŚ - Koleje Śląskie
KM - Koleje Mazowieckie
KMŁ - Koleje Małopolskie
(Companies operating abroad)
UBB - Usedomer Bäderbahn
DB - Deutsche Bahn (Regio or Fernverkehr)
DLB - Die Länderbahn
TL(DLB) - Trilex (Die Länderbahn)
ČD - České Dráhy
GWTR - GW Train Regio
LET - Leo Express Tenders
ZSSK - Železničná Spoločnosť Slovensko
UZ - Ukrzaliznytsia
KEY TO COLOURS:
Magenta - #FF00DD: visited in 2022 during #CrossBorderRail Project
Light pink - #FF76C3: visited in since the 2022 project
Grey - #777777: not yet visited
Very light grey - #BBBBBB: used for tramways and narrow gauge lines
KEY TO ICONS:
Track with cross - track is missing or out of use
Train with cross, and track - track is useable but no passenger trains
Train and track - regional passenger trains run
IC - Only long-distance passenger trains run
SOURCES:
Primarily the excellent https://www.bazakolejowa.pl and https://atlaskolejowy.net, as well as official timetables from PKP PLK, DB InfraGO (station posters), the Správa Železnic and ŽSR