Wolsztyn Steam Trainings

Wolsztyn (formerly Wollstein) is a small town set amongst lakes, 68 km south-west of Poznan, which was once noted for the manufacture of woollen cloth. It is a railway junction, with a locomotive depot, and is now the last place in Europe where service trains are regularly worked by steam locomotives, and the location of a project, managed by a British entrepreneur in partnership with a charitable trust in Poland, and with PKP, the Polish railway authority, that enables the skills of driving and firing steam locomotives to be passed to future generations. Steam Training organises regular courses of several weeks’ duration on which visitors from abroad are able, under supervision, to drive timetabled passenger trains. The railways in the region reflect the characteristic practices of the Prussian State Railways. The roundhouse at the locomotive depot remains in use and in the vicinity there is an open air museum, managed by PKP, displaying a variety of steam locomotives in the vicinity. Plans were announced in 2007 to modernise the railway between Wolsztyn and Poznan, but it is intended to retain the line’s historic features.