Hello, World!

Published: 2023-06-15, last modified: 2023-10-15

So, it’s finally that moment! All the basic technicalities are ready, I can finally write the first true article. First of all, I probably should explain what I am actually doing here (or, to be more accurate, what I am going to do).

All you need to know about public transport in Poland – or ‘what?’ (and ‘why?’)

The more intelligent readers have probably guessed this after reading the site’s slogan. Obviously, it is created far above the truth, because it is simply impossible to describe everything about public transport. Paradoxically, this was one of the reasons for me to set up this site.

Transport is quite a popular topic over the internet, travel – probably even more popular, but it appears that it is still difficult to find certain transport-related information. Especially if you don’t know the language. I have found this out more than once – and here I should probably mention some examples of my own experiences, but then I wouldn’t have anything to write about later (although actually that’s rather unlikely to happen – more on that below). For now, let’s continue with the assumption that some information is sometimes hard to find.

Of course, there are sites like Seat61 or Show Me The Journey, but some of the topics are not fully described there. An example? The first one: carrying bikes on Polish trains. Simon from Show Me The Journey mentions only trains operated by Intercity and Polregio (there are many more railway operators in Poland), Mark Smith from Seat61 doesn’t describe Poland at all. No wonder – no one should be expected to review all the fares, transport regulations or timetables of all the train operators in Europe. Especially if they do not know the language in which these documents are published. That is why transport in Poland should be described by someone from here!

Abz. – or ‘who?’ (and ‘when?’)

It’s me. I’m probably not the best person in the world to describe all this stuff – but since that (best in the world) person isn’t doing it, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I check this public transport information for myself anyway, so why not take extra note of it?

I decided to do this more or less… In July (although I thought about it a bit earlier). Now it’s June – and as I don’t go back in time, that means almost a year has passed. Of course, I haven’t done anything for most of that time – let’s say I have lazily progressed to the state it’s in now in about a month. I hope everything will go faster now.

By the end of June or so, I plan to be done with creating pages like ‘About Me’ or ‘Contact Me’ (for now, all the links in the menus don’t really go anywhere). [Update: these pages have now been created. The appropriate links (now also added here) take you to the appropriate places!] In July, I plan to start creating the actual content. If everything goes according to my plan, I should have the map (about which more in a moment) finished by the end of the year, which (together with perhaps over a dozen articles I should have published by then) will allow me to consider that the site is already fully operational

abzpp.com – or ‘how?’ (and ‘where?’)

I plan to divide the main part of the website into three main sub-parts: the guide, the blog and the map.

In the guide, I will publish articles describing different aspects of travelling by public transport in Poland (and then I will try to update them relatively regularly). The guide will be complemented by the blog, where, in my free time, I will publish notes on my travels, the behind-the-scenes of the website’s creation (this text is in the blog section, so it can be considered the first in this series) and other events, more or less related to transport and travelling. The map will be both a kind of interactive table of contents and a summary of the two previous parts.

All of this doubled, because the site is created simultaneously in Polish and English. (The English-language part is important for me, because I imagine that it must be more difficult for people who don’t know Polish to find information about communication in Poland, however, there is no reason not to publish all the information also in the Polish version – I still know this language best. I hope this will be helpful to someone).

Including the part invisible to the average reader, I have already planned over twenty of these sub-parts of the website. That’s quite a lot to handle for a single person, so the development of the site may progress a bit slower than I would like…

‘All you need to know… or what’ once again

I have a lot of ideas, because there are a lot of things I would like to collect information about on this site. I have taken it as my task to describe public transport in a very broad sense. I want to write here not only about railways, but also about all kinds of other forms of public transport. Some topics I would like to spend more time on include:

• international connections (not only trains!),
• everything connected with transfers between long-distance and local connections,
• special offers combining rail with other means of transport,
• rail special offers – national and international (including much about Interrail),
• night trains,
• reservations and additional fares on Polish trains,
• public transport in large cities, but above that:
• transport in small towns and in the countryside,
• bikes and carrying them on various forms of transport, especially on trains,
• transportation curiosities in Poland,
• ‘other’ carriages: restaurant cars, bar cars, sleeping cars, couchette cars, bicycle cars, panoramic cars, double-decker cars…
• narrow-gauge railways (especially those that have kept or regained a transport role in addition to their tourist value),
• …and, in fact, all the other practical aspects of car-free travel.

If you are interested in any of these topics especially, please contact me and I’ll give it priority – I don’t really have any ‘queue’ according to which I’ll be adding new articles.

Exactly – there is no commenting facility here yet (I plan to introduce one), so e-mail is the only way to contact me. I’m happy to read any mail – for me, at the very least, it’s a nice signal that someone has actually read what I write. Id especially welcome any suggestions for the development of the site! And if you want to find out if I manage to develop as planned – come back and look here regularly ;-)

Update: the commenting system is now in place, feel free to use it!

– Abz. (Poznań, Poland)