Nocne pociągi dalekobieżne w przestrzeni Polski – zarys historyczny i perspektywy rozwoju
Long-distance night trains in the Polish space – a historical outline and perspectives for development

Summary/Abstract: The passenger rail transport in Poland lets us travel between regions faster every year. But in the first years of the twenty-first century the only way to travel from, for example, the Tatra Mountains to the Baltic coast, was travelling by night train. They were run on long, cross-city routes. Despite a long time of journey, they were still popular, especially in tourism. As a result of investments in Polish railways, the number of fast daily trains has significantly increased, taking some potential passengers of the night trains. On the other hand, there are still some regions located on the peripheries, which demand night trains to have long-distance connections with other Polish regions. The future of those trains in Poland is not clear. Recently a trend of internationalization of night trains has been observed. For example, in the summer of 2020 new night trains connecting Czechia and Polish Baltic resorts are planned to be run. The topic of the future of night trains in Poland, compared to the past, should be well deliberated and planned to maintain high efficiency of rail transport. The aim of this paper is to discuss the past and the potential future of night trains in Poland. Furthermore an author`s formula estimating the demand in trains is presented in order to define the efficiency of night trains compared to the day trains.

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