Railways – first or abandoned?

200 years ago (September 27, 1825), Locomotive No. 1 pulled a train consisting of over 30 freight and passenger cars for the first time. In this way, the railway “entered the first track,” which it followed until the 1960s. It was then dethroned by private motorization and road transport.

In the second half of September 2025, railways became the subject of political debate in Poland. This is good, but is the scope of the debate properly defined? While passenger rail focuses on domestic, long-distance transport – including High Speed Rail (Kolej Dużych Prędkości – KDP), but also agglomeration and interregional transport – freight rail currently serves only two market segments: the transport of raw materials and semi-finished products, and combined transport units—containers and semi-trailers. Most freight transport takes place in international relations. Their development is not discussed in Poland or abroad. The German federal government's strategy for the development of freight railways, published in September, is silent on this issue. And yet, most of the trains leaving Poland go to Germany and transit through that country.

Freight railways remain neglected by public authorities, who constantly repeat the slogan “trucks on tracks,” but have failed to halt their decline for decades.

The negligence of the public authorities of EU member states and the EU Commission will soon take its toll on Europeans. With the growing shortage of drivers caused by demographic changes and the reduction in the number of men of working age, the economy would be increasingly interested in efficient and effective rail freight services. However, there will be a shortage of suitable services on the market, as the rail infrastructure in Europe's main transport corridors has many bottlenecks. The political preference for passenger transport will continue to force passenger trains to be given priority, which will exacerbate the already existing phenomenon of delays to freight trains. Under such conditions, freight rail will be treated as an unattractive logistics solution.