Poland maps out 4,700 km rail expansion to 2050
POLAND: The country’s first comprehensive long-term rail plan sets out 4,700 km of new lines — including 2,700 km to high-speed standard — as the framework for network development after 2035.
The Integrated Railway Network (ZSK), presented 15 June by Centralny Port Komunikacyjny, PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe and the Ministry of Infrastructure, replaces an earlier model of ten Warsaw-centred spokes with 19 national corridors. The plan requires Ministerial Council approval before it enters formal planning documents and TEN-T mapping.
Around 1,000 km of the total are already under construction, in procurement or at advanced design stage. Costs for investments after 2035 are estimated at approximately 610 billion zlotys.
From spokes to corridors
The ZSK marks a structural departure from the previous model, which routed lines outward from Warsaw in ten radial spokes. That design served the CPK airport hub logic — connections to a single national interchange. The new plan builds 19 corridors that link cities to each other, not only to the capital. Deputy ministers Maciej Lasek and Piotr Malepszak presented it as a network designed for national connectivity, with 27 small and medium cities gaining rail access for the first time.
The Polish government has drawn the comparison to the 1990s motorway programme — an infrastructure commitment that outlasted multiple governments and delivered a national road network. The ZSK is intended to survive changes of government.
What happens before 2035
The 1,000 km deliverable by 2035 represents the portion of the plan already in motion. It includes the Y-line — the central spine linking Warsaw to Łódź and branching to Poznań and Wrocław — and the Rail Baltica section Ełk–Trakiszki. CPK airport terminal construction begins in 2026, with the first high-speed section targeted for 2035.
The remaining 3,700 km are post-2035 investment, estimated at approximately 610 billion zlotys — roughly EUR 143 billion at the current exchange rate, of which 410 billion zlotys covers new lines and 200 billion zlotys covers modernisation of 5,600 km of existing network. No funding source for the post-2035 phase has been identified or committed.
The passenger forecast underpinning the plan projects 720 million annual journeys by 2050, up from 439 million in 2025. On the freight side, average commercial speed is targeted to rise from 34 km/h to 56 km/h, supported by 23 new intermodal terminals.
Military corridors built in from the start
All ZSK corridors are designed as dual-use infrastructure. Military mobility requirements were incorporated into the planning process from the outset — a requirement that has driven Polish infrastructure planning since 2022. Every corridor meets the load and gauge specifications required for military rail movements.
The ZSK is a planning document, not a government decision. Ministerial Council adoption is the next formal step, and no date has been announced. The political targets embedded in the plan — “Poland in 100 minutes,” “Poland in 3 hours” — are aspirations, not contractual commitments. The plan spans multiple political cycles, and no funding mechanism for the post-2035 phase has been identified.