Underground train speed is becoming the newest flashpoint around Poland’s Central Communication Port. The company behind the project has begun market talks about the station and tunnel, yet a decision on how fast high-speed trains will pass beneath the future airport is still pending, with an analysis due at the beginning of September.
The planned rail component at Baranów is far from ordinary. A through station with 12 tracks, a platform hall close to 1 km long and a volume of more than 1.6 million cubic metres will be buried partly below ground, making it nearly three times larger than Warsaw Central Station. The station will be tied to a roughly 6 km tunnel running east-west, with widths varying from about 50 m to 160 m. Six tracks entering from the east fan out to 12 in the station, then shrink back to six on the western side, where connections will lead toward Gdańsk, Łódź and Wrocław; the eastern portal will serve Warsaw.
Port Polska has already admitted four consortiums made up of 11 companies to a competitive dialogue. The work is split into two parts, with an optional scope covering track layout and the supply of close-transport equipment. After the dialogue, the bidders will be invited to submit offers in the fourth quarter of this year. The contract is planned to be signed in the first quarter of 2027, and construction should start in the third or fourth quarter of 2027. Price, delivery methodology and warranty period will be among the main award criteria.
Why the old 120 km/h limit no longer fits
Earlier design work assumed 120 km/h through the tunnel, based on UIC guidelines and a model in which every train stopped at the airport station. After the 2023 change of government, Poland’s high-speed ambitions were upgraded: maximum speeds moved to 320 km/h, and the airport station stopped being treated as the central node of the rail system. Deputy Infrastructure Minister Piotr Malepszak, the government’s CPK commissioner, has argued that commercial high-speed rail must offer attractive journey times: about 100 minutes from Warsaw to Poznań or Wrocław, 40 minutes from Warsaw to Łódź, and 60 minutes between Łódź and Poznań or Wrocław.
That shift suggests only airport-bound trains should stop underground, while long-distance expresses should pass through as fast as technically possible. Port Polska has therefore commissioned the Railway Institute to prepare an analysis of how transit speeds can be increased. The document is expected at the start of September and is supposed to recommend technical solutions for trains that do not stop below the airport.
A dispute over the management shake-up and the calendar
The speed question has also entered the political debate around CPK. Patryk Wild, vice-president of the pro-CPK association „Tak dla CPK”, claimed on X that last week’s removal of chief executive Filip Czernicki and board member Dariusz Kuś was caused by their refusal to redesign the entire station and rail layout so trains could run through the terminal at 320 km/h. In his view, meeting such demands would push the airport’s construction back by at least two to four years, add hundreds of millions of zlotys for documentation alone, then billions for construction, and could delay the opening to 2036-37.
Port Polska rejects the idea that the investment is at risk. The company says raising the speed at this stage does not affect the construction schedule, and design work is proceeding as planned. If speeds are significantly increased, the number of tracks available to passengers would be adjusted from 12 to 10, leaving two tracks for safe non-stop passage; the number of platforms would remain six. Port Polska says it is using advice from French and Spanish partners and the Railway Institute to support these changes.
The project remains on track to open the station at the end of 2032, together with the new airport and the Warsaw-CPK-Łódź high-speed line. Malepszak has explained the board changes differently, saying the company needs stronger construction experience. According to Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, Adam Ferens, who joined the CPK board in June, will replace Dariusz Kuś as the member supervising airport construction; a new CEO will be chosen through a competition.
On Friday 7 August, CPK will be debated at the Presidential Palace during a conference titled „What next with CPK. Balance, chances, threats.” The date marks one year since President Karol Nawrocki signed the civic bill „Tak dla CPK” in Kalisz and sent it to the Sejm. The bill reached the Sejm’s Infrastructure Committee after its first reading in September 2025, but formal work on it has not been resumed.
Source: WNP.PL, Photo: Port Polska press materials
