Polish Coal Trunk-Line

It crosses the central part of the country, from the coal mines and steelworks of Upper Silesia in the South to the Baltic Sea port of Gdynia in the North.

After crossing almost 30 kilometers it reaches Tarnowskie Góry – a very important freight station located on the northern outskirts of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin.

Then, in 1926 a Kalety – Herby Nowe – Wieluń – Kępno line was constructed, thanks to which Upper Silesia and Poznań got a direct connection, without the necessity of using the then-German junction at Kreuzburg (Kluczbork).

From there it goes to Bydgoszcz, which had already been connected to Gdańsk and Gdynia (via Laskowice and Tczew), but the creation of Free City of Danzig made it difficult to keep regular Polish freight movement in the interbellum.

Thus, another part of the Coal Trunk-Line between Bydgoszcz and Gdynia was constructed in the early 1930s, via Wierzchucin and Kościerzyna and the sparsely populated forests and hills of Kashubia.

Upper Silesia was divided (see: Silesian Uprisings) and the boundary left in German hands several crucial junctions, including Kluczbork (Kreuzburg) and Fosowskie (Vossowska).

As coal was one of the main Polish exports, and transit through Germany was not allowed (due to the German–Polish customs war in the late 1920s and early 1930s), construction of the new line was necessary.

Instead, the Coal Trunk-Line crossed the main East-West route (Warsaw – Łódź – Ostrów Wielkopolski – Poznań) in the vicinity of the town of Zduńska Wola.

The Coal Trunk-Line was constructed by order of the Polish Government by a private company, the French-Polish Rail Association (FPTK – Francusko-Polskie Towarzystwo Kolejowe).

The most important stations on the original route are Chorzów, Tarnowskie Góry, Kalety, Herby Nowe, Chorzew Siemkowice, Zduńska Wola Karsznice, Inowrocław, Bydgoszcz, Wierzchucin, Kościerzyna, Somonino and Gdynia.