History of Rail Transport in Poland - World War II

World War II

On 1 September 1939, railwaymen of Szymankowo stopped a German armoured train before its arrival on the bridge over the Vistula River and blew up the bridge. After the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland on 17 September 1939, most Polish rolling stock fell into Soviet hands.

The Polish railways in Silesia, Wielkopolska and Pomorze were adopted by German railways Deutsche Reichsbahn on 25 September.

Until the last moment before the German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, cargo trains transported goods from the Soviet Union to Germany. The beginning of German attacks on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 resulted in the possession of railway and rolling stock by Ostbahn and the possession of PKP rolling stock with broad gauge track and reconstruction to standard gauge. The beginning of organized sabotage by the Polish resistance movement on railways took place about the same time.

In 1942, global production of simple military steam locomotives, DR Kriegslok BR52 (PKP class Ty2), in Poznań and Chrzanów, and of steam boilers for these locomotives started in Sosnowiec.

The Warsaw Uprising caused widespread damage of Warsaw rolling stock, network and electric traction; both bridges over the Vistula River and the underground tunnel on the Warsaw Cross-City Line were destroyed.

In 1944, production of the first steam locomotive BR52 in Chrzanów started.