The first in 2022 Open Day in Engine Shed is over. On 7th May235 guests decided to visit the Shed despite the end of the May’s “long weekend”.
We are happy that at last we could return to the formula from before 2020 and reintroduce guided tours and welcome back Atmosfera pizza parlor as the catering provider. As in the previous years, thanks to the cooperation with Łódź Metropolitan Railway (ŁKA), guests travelling by ŁKA could return from Skierniewice for free.
Thank you very much for visit and see you again during the 11th Railway Night of Museums on 14th May 2022.
Our colleague Marek Moczulski would like to invite to the walk on the Old Powązki cemetery on the occasion of 150th anniversary of Railway School (currently School Complex № 7).
The guided walk will follow the route of the graves of famous pupils of the Railway School or pepople connected with this facility: Stanisław Wysocki (1805 – 1868, chief engineer of the Warsaw-Vienna Railway), Zygmunt Noskowski (1846 – 1909, composer), Aleksander Janowski (1866 – 1944, pioneer of local history research), Stanisław Szober (1879 – 1938, linguist), Władysław Pytlasiński (1863 – 1933, wrestler) and numerous headmasters of the school.
The walk starts by the St. Onorata’s Gate of Old Powązki cemetery on 14th May at 11:00 AM and will take around 2 hours.
After a three years hiatus, the Railway Night of Museums is back in the Engine Shed. For the eleventh time in the history of our association, we would like to invite you to visit us on 14th May from 6 PM till midnight. The rolling stock from our collection as well as the miniature garden railway will be illuminated specially for this event. Catering and refreshments will be provided by Atmosfera pizza parlor.
We would like to remind you that Łódź Metropolitan Railway (ŁKA) has prepared a special offer for the guests of Open Day in the Engine Shed. Passengers travelling to Skierniewice by ŁKA can return to their original departure station for free. The only condition is to receive a stamp or a written confirmation of the visit (in case of electronic tickets) at the entrance to the Shed. The details of the offer is described here (document in Polish only).
The Railway Night of Museums is one of the events prepared by the culture facilities in Skierniewice. The detailed schedule of the events and a timetable of a special shuttle bus travelling between the institutions is provided below.
As in the previous years, the Łódź Metropolitan Railway (ŁKA) has prepared a special offer for the guests of Open Day in the Engine Shed. Passengers travelling to Skierniewice by ŁKA train can return to their original departure station for free. The only condition is to receive a stamp or a written confirmation of the visit (in case of electronic tickets) at the entrance to the Shed. The details of the offer is described here (document in Polish only).
Please note that the offer is valid only during the scheduled events in the Engine Shed:
7th May – Open Day
14th May – Railway Night of Museums
4th June – Children’s Day in the Engine Shed
2nd July – Open Day
6th August – Open Day
3rd September – Open Day
10th and 11th September – Open Day during the Festival of Flowers, Fruits and Vegetables
1st October – Open Day (177th anniversary of Warsaw-Vienna Railway reaching Skierniewice)
On 7th May 2022 from 11 AM to 4 PM we would like to invite you to the Open Day in the Engine Shed. This event opens the 18th tourist season in Skierniewice Engine Shed. Open Day is a perfect opportunity to learn more about the history of the Shed and the vehicles from our collection. Visitors can participate in the guided tours or tour the Shed on their own along the arranged sightseeing routes – a short one along the portion of the roundhouse and the extended route encompassing nearly whole length of the roundhouse, where the historical rolling stock is collected.
Additional attractions include:
steam engines maintenance equipment and infrastructure,
garden railway,
simulator of class SM42 diesel engine.
Guided tours start every hour at 11 AM, 12 PM, 1 PM (30 minutes tour) and 2 PM (1 hour tour along the extended sightseeing route).
We would also like to remind you that Łódź Metropolitan Railway (ŁKA) has prepared a special offer for the guests of Open Day in the Engine Shed. Passengers travelling to Skierniewice by ŁKA can return to their original departure station for free on the day of the Open Day. The only condition is to receive a stamp or a written confirmation of the visit (in case of electronic tickets) at the entrance to the Shed. The details of the offer is described here (document in Polish only).
It’s the beginning of April and this can mean only one thing for us – beginning of the repairs of the tracks in the Shed. Thanks to the grant by the City Council of Skierniewice, we have started the complete overhaul of tracks № 7 and№ 8 in front of the roundhouse. During the first weeks, we have removed the rails, concrete crossing plates and prepared an access route for the backhoe loader aiding in the works. Due to the fast-growing prices of materials we have already stock up with a fresh ballast that will be required later during the works.
We would like to inform you that individual visitors can visit the shed during the scheduled events, starting from the Open Day on 3rd September 2022 (11.00-16.00). Open Days take place on every first Saturday of the month from May to October (last on 1st October 2022).
Organized groups can visit the Shed outside of the scheduled events after prior arrangement with tour coordinator. To arrange the date of the visit please call us (Sławomir Sidor, tel. 730 181 323) or contact us via email zwiedzanie@psmk.org.
Please note that we are a non-profit organization without a full-time employees. Therefore, there is no possibility to visit the shed without the prior arrangement with the guide or tour coordinator.
It is a high time to sum up our achievements also in the field of saving the railway signalling and traffic control equipment in 2020.
The first major project started at the very beginning of the year was the complete overhaul of the points machine manufactured by VES in 1950’s. The device was waiting for a longer time for its turn in renovation. After assembling and connecting it to the power frame it appeared that both its electrical and mechanical part if in full working order. Still, the general look of the machine left a lot to be desired so we ended up completely disassembling it, stripping of old paint and repainting. We expected to finish on time to show the results to the visitors of the Shed during the first Open Days. Unfortunately, the pandemic limits forced us to close the exhibition to the public till the end of the season.
As we already started laying around the power frame, we found plenty of surprises inside the electromechanical interlocking. The frame spend most of its life as a training aid in the railway school and was full of makeshift electrical connections and broken or missing parts. One of our colleagues, experienced in the maintenance and repairs of this type of devices, took over the pain-sticking task of rewiring of the whole frame.
Another area of our efforts was the expansion of our collection of railway light signals. We divided our attention between the distant signal and the light stripe for a five-aspect signal. The repainting and initial assembly of the distant signal began a year ago during the volunteers camp. The next step was building a proper metal stand for the heavy signal. After fixing the signal upright, the further work went smoothly and in the mid-August the signal displayed for the first time the “expect stop” aspect. The light stripe (a subsidiary light indicating higher speed on diverging route) was a much modest affair, however it is a much needed addition to our five aspect semaphore. We intend that in the near future both signals will be connected to the relay interlocking allowing us to show the full succession of signals along the route: the distant signal, the home signal and the exit signal.
This was not the end of our adventure with light signals. We got back to the long forgotten renovation of a dwarf signal, which for many years was used as a barraging signal on track № 1 in front of the roundhouse. Unfortunately, the late-Autumn lock-down forced us to abandon for now this project like a couple of other started renovations (lock frame and points lantern). Still, we hope that as soon as the snow starts thawing we can get back to work to, hopefully, show the new exhibits during the next years season.
Below you can find a couple of snapshots from our work during 2020:
First days of December were simultaneously the last days of track works planned for 2020. Our round-the-year efforts were possible thanks to the financial support of the city of Skierniewice in the amount of 20000 PLN.
The works started with the first warm days, on 7th March 2020 but due to the global situation had to be immediately halted. Nevertheless, we were able to kick-off the repairs of the rapidly deteriorating track №18 in front of the roundhouse. Due to the lock-down measures, repairs were continued by a contractor until end of April when our volunteers joined in and carried out the repairs till the end of July.
During the summer holidays, we focused on track № 11 in front of the roundhouse. Despite the scorching heat, we managed to complete the work before the beginning of the school year.
Simultaneously, we took care of track № 77 which abruptly ends in front of the turntable. To allow for safe shunting, we decided to place a historical buffer stop on its end. First works were completed with help of scouts from the Łodź Scouts Regiment “Bambaju” during their stay on the shed’s premises. Later in the year we prepared the track surface for the buffer stop, including replacement of ties and a fresh layer of ballast. The buffer stop itself required some minor metalworking and rust-proofing before, finally, being fixed to the rails.
Task Adaptation of historical objects of Skierniewice engine shed for museum and cultural events supported by
2020 was a very strange year, affecting nearly all aspects of the Engine Shed life. Fortunately, we were able to finalize the most crucial repairs of the shed’s buildings. On Monday, 21st December 2020, Voivodeship Office of Historical Monuments Protection in Łódź and the board of PARE approved the first stage of repairs of the roof of the Shed’s former office building.
Despite our initial budget and plans to start with the most damaged half of the roof, the final refurbishment covered around two-thirds of its surface. The scope of work was also much broader than in case of the nearby former storage building. The whole office building is covered in tile roof mode of a poor quality concrete tiles. All of them had to be thrown away and replaced with a proper ceramic tiles. During the repairs, lasting over couple of weeks, close to 15 thousand tiles has been laid on the roof. All tiles have been rescued from the demolished warehouse build during II World War at the Łódź Olechów station.
The continuation of the works till the mid-December was possibly thanks to an exceptionally warm weather and surplus financial assets collected over the year. We hope that the scope of work done will stop the further deterioration of the building. As expected the cost of the repairs reached quite high amount – 120 709,52 PLN. The council of Łódź Voivodeship supported us with the amount of 52 500 PLN, the rest of the cost was covered from our own assets, including the money form 1% of the income tax (ca. 37 thousand PLN).
At this point we decided to sum-up costs of all building repairs since the Association took over the shed and were quite astonished that we are close to reaching a total amount of 1.4 million PLN.
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