There were no toasts or cake. On the contrary. The tenth anniversary of the opening of Poznan's pseudo station puts a very gloomy mood. There is no chance of restoring the former station building to life. Especially when one looks at the snail's pace of construction of the new platform and pedestrian tunnel. Even this the railroaders are unable to complete in a meaningful time.
That the new building of Poznan's main station is just a substitute for a train station, needs no convincing to anyone who has experienced this extremely non-functional and cramped facility at least once. The building, nicknamed "breadbox" because of its shape, was built at the express pace of ten months. It was put into operation on May 27, 2012, a few days before the European soccer championships being held in Poland and Ukraine.
The facility was built by Trigranit (designed by Bose International/Pentagram), which, in consultation with the railroad, erected one of the most unsuccessful and redundant shopping malls in the city (first Poznań City Center, today: Avenida) a year later - functionally merged with the station in such a way that passengers had to walk through it - making up the roads in the process. It was not until five years after the opening of the "station" that the city's elected authorities in 2014 opened a crosswalk that allows people to shorten their route to bus stops and bypass the mall (the previous mayor did not allow this possibility - allegedly for "safety" reasons).
Avenida shopping center making up the bulk of the shopping and station complex, left: the abandoned and unused mall hall right next to the cramped station; right: only a third of the "breadbox" is the station building
Photo: Jakub Głaz
no birthday present
Instead, the old, much more functional station - located centrally between the tracks (rather than extremely, as the current one is) - was closed a few months after the new one opened. And it remains that way to this day. Several times the railroaders wanted to demolish it, convert it into an office building with a flawed station function, or add hotel and office high-rises to it. This year, with difficulty, after weeks of effort, they made the old station hall available to help Ukrainian refugees. Nothing came of plans to modernize or rebuild it (read more: here). The city's efforts to make the station functional and return the old station to its former function have stalled.
left: the narrow, squalid and non-functional main entrance to the station building (view from the Dworcowy Bridge);
Right: the defunct former station building
Photo: Jakub Głaz
There was hope, however, that the sweetening of the fateful tenth anniversary would be the opening of a new platform and an extension of the tunnel under the tracks, which would finally connect the areas on the east and west sides of the station. Admittedly, the tunnel, for ownership reasons (opposition from the mall), does not take the easiest possible route, but it will still be some kind of transportation convenience. It's just not clear when. The work, which began at the end of 2019 (!), was supposed to be completed this spring - unofficially by the end of May (railroaders reported, admittedly, that the work was going "according to schedule", but at the same time avoided giving specific dates). However, the platform, underpass, elevators and escalators leading to the station level are still not ready and , judging by the advancement of the work , will not be for at least several more weeks, if not months.
Work, which is in its third year, on the construction of a single platform and 400 meters of tunnel that is an extension of the existing underpass (towards Składowa Street)
photo: Jakub Głaz
railroad not in order
So it is also unclear when the numbering of the station's platforms will finally be sorted out. It has been confusing visitors for years, because not only are the platforms not sequentially numbered, but some of them also have letter suffixes (for example, platform 4a which is in fact a separate station - the former "summer" station), which create even more confusion. A platform under construction, on the eastern side, with another letter suffix, would take the chaos to an even higher level. So the railroaders finally announced, after years of pressure from activists and community activists (primarily from the Investment for Poznań association), that the numbering issue would be civilized with the opening of the platform and tunnel. However, it is still unclear how this order will be brought about, and the recently presented proposals still do not take into account the perspective of the average user and are not intuitive.
The case of the Poznan pseudo station shows that the railroad companies responsible for investments need an immediate revolution and control of the relevant authorities. Especially if one recalls the reconstruction of the Poznań-Warsaw route, delayed for three years, and other protracted track investments. On the other hand, it is difficult to understand how it is that while railroaders are laboriously chiseling the Poznań tunnel and platform for the third year, in Warsaw a significant part of the new Warsaw-West station has already sprouted, with construction starting later - in the fall of 2020.
