A Polish Steam Primer

• Keep Distracting 'em, Lech, Steam in Poland 1980
• Miss Selinka and Individual Hating, Steam in Poland 1983
• Polish Hide and Seek, Steam in Poland 1984
• East Prussia was “the business” – Poland 1991
• A Polish Corridor Tale, Poland/Ukraine 1984
• Kriegsloks with everything – Poland 1987
• Too Many Zlotys -- Poland 1987
• On borrowed time – or, Smurfs rule ! – Poland 1990
• “Big W” – Wolsztyn, 1980 to the present day
• Uniestowo or bust – Poland 1994

• “Stretford Bridge” in the East - Polish nostalgia (25th June 2014)

PKP (Polish State Railways) steam dramatis personae in regular commercial service during the 1980s -- all classes World-War-II-or-later, vintage:

Common:

Standard gauge

Ty2 2-10-0: German class 52 "austerity" WWII "Kriegslok" type. There was also class Ty42 - identical with Ty2, but far less often met with. The only difference was that Ty2 were German-built, Ty42 built by Polish firms at German orders.

Pt47 2-8-2: PKP's post-war express passenger class, developed from similar pre-war ditto.

Ol49 2-6-2: post-war PKP mixed-traffic design.

TKt48 2-8-2T: post-war type, originally planned for freight haulage, but by the 1980s employed almost entirely on local / branch passenger.

Narrow gauge

Px48 0-8-0: post-war design, developed from similar pre-war ditto, widespread on the 750mm and metre gauges (not found on other narrow gauges). Minor variation, the class Px49 (only ten built): identical, except that "48s" had bogie eight-wheel tenders, and "49s" six-wheel ones.

Less common:

Standard gauge

Ty43 2-10-0: German class 42 design - more-heavy-duty version of the German class 52 "Kriegslok".

Ty45 2-10-0: post-war PKP design - relatively light, "go-anywhere", freight 2-10-0.

Ty51 2-10-0: post-war PKP design for heavy freight haulage.

I have always marvelled at PKP's elaborate designation system for steam loco classes. For the standard gauge, the initial, capital, letter, indicated the class's intended principal purpose: P meant express passenger, O mixed-traffic, T freight. A capital K after the first letter (as in TKt48) indicated a tank loco class. The succeeding lower-case letter indicated the wheel arrangement - one for each: thus, t meant 2-8-2, y meant 2-10-0, and so on. The number which followed, specified the class and revealed the origin of the loco's design. A certain number-series referred to German designs; another, to Austrian; another, to post-independence Polish (these and these only, also incorporated the type's year of origin - e.g. Pt47: inaugurated in 1947); yet another, to "anyone else" (Brits, Yanks, what-have-you). For some reason, the system had a "thing" about German types from the World War II era: if German-built they had one designation, if Polish-built at German behest under German occupation, they had another, giving the year of introduction: thus with, as above, Ty2 and Ty42 - by the 1980s, the only such class with examples of both kinds, left in service.

To someone non-technically-minded such as myself, it all seemed unnecessarily and dementedly complicated, and as though dreamed up for the delectation of gricers - who were otherwise hated on the Polish railway scene. The icing on this cake, was that PKP's set-up for designation of narrow-gauge steam classes was similar in general outline, to that for standard-gauge ones, but considerably different in detail. Glass houses, maybe: British Railways' designating of their steam classes was fairly strange and wayward - but BR seemed in this, to glory in being random and un-systematic, whereas PKP took system and logic to borderline-crazy extremes. There's probably no totally ideal way to handle this thing.