Airport express

The terminus station of a new express rail service connecting Warsaw's city center and Terminal 1 of Fryderyk Chopin Airport has been completed. Once finished, the rail line will ensure a trip from the center to the airport takes just 20 minutes, regardless of traffic.

Much remains to be done, however. In order to complete the project, railway tracks need to be replaced, two more train stops will be built - at Al. Jerozolimskie and ul. Żwirki i Wigury - and a tunnel needs to be dug from the airport station to the existing Służewiec station.

The project is the result of cooperation between "Polish Airports" State Enterprise PPL, the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways and Warsaw City Hall. Its aim is to create a rail connection with the airport as well as to improve road infrastructure.

"PKP Polish Railways was asked to take care of the railway," Piotr Borys, PKP Polish Railways' project coordinator, told WBJ.

The remaining work will be completed in two phases. Construction of the two new stations and modernization of the existing railway track, part of the Warsaw-Radom railway line, will be finished at the end of May 2008. Construction work began in July 2007.

This phase will cost around zł.205 million and the work will be carried out by Trakcja Polska, which won a tender for the project. The investment will be partly financed from the EU Infrastructure and Environment Operational Programme and partly from the state budget.

"The second, more difficult, phase will be the tunnel between the Służewiec station and the airport," said Borys. "We are almost done with the technical and engineering plan. In the spring, a tender will be held for the tunnel's construction," he said. "We expect [this] will start this year and will be finished at the start of 2010," he added.