Railway safety. The end of sending parcels on trains is coming

According to a report by “Czarno na white” journalists, Katarzyna Lazzeri and Olga Orzechowska, Poland does not have a modern railway traffic control system. Instead of a digital one, we still use an analog system, which is outdated and poses serious risks. As a result, all you need is a simple walkie-talkie and instructions from the Internet, and you can eavesdrop on every conversation of railway employees and stop the train.

Read more in: Shocking findings. “If someone says: these are just incidents, they are simply wrong.”

Adrian Furgalski, president of the management board of the TOR Economic Advisory Team, which deals with, among others, the results of the journalists' findings and railway safety, spoke on TVN24. situation on the railway.

Is the Polish railway safe? In the expert's opinion, yes, and he pointed to statistics related to accidents.

– If 1,893 people died on the roads last year, and only 3 were killed by the railways. And I'm not talking about crossings, where drivers usually make mistakes. And these were railway workers, where there were 21,000 accidents on the roads and 523 on the railways. This shows that it is safe, but I will ask myself a different question. Am I afraid to get on the train? I absolutely don't, he emphasized. Although, as he admitted, not everywhere in Poland has systems “fit for the 21st century”. But these, as he admitted, can also be hacked.

When asked about the issue of covering the railway route with a digital control system, Furgalski replies that the level of advancement at which “the system can drive the train and, for example, brake itself. This is really zero.” In his opinion, it was an “absolute failure”.

When asked about the journalists' report “Black and White”, in which they easily spent about PLN 140 on a walkie-talkie and thanks to a properly programmed signal, they were able to stop the train, Furgalski admits that “this is not a new phenomenon.”

– Last year there were 728 such illegal, unauthorized detentions. This year, until yesterday, there are more, 777 – said the expert. – Because it is as it was in the material. Old analog system. We used to be able to eavesdrop on the police. Well, the police have already gone a few floors up. (…) Probably the loudest thing was about how Putin's speech or the Russian anthem actually were – he added.

Let us remind you that in one night 20 trains stopped all over Poland. This scene also appeared in the report by Katarzyna Lacera and Olga Orzechowska. The trains are stopping. First, a speech is heard from the loudspeakers Vladimir Putinand then the Russian anthem is heard.

– I've been asked about this for years. And as I say, you cannot ignore it, because although it is not a threat to safety, it disorganizes the traffic because you can stop anything. Of course, for a few or a dozen or so minutes, because you need to check whether it is a false arrest or not. Last year, there were 665 stopped trains out of 2 million 300 in operation. But why do I say not to ignore it? Because I have the impression that until the Russian anthem was played, this was the attitude of the services, says the expert.

He adds that “it is not difficult to buy a walkie-talkie, radio, telephone on Allegro or anywhere. For PLN 100-150. There is no problem in checking the instructions on the Internet.”

– These are detailed recordings where a person explains how to send these signals, at what frequency, on what band, to stop the trains. This is classified as hooliganism in this major report. Because it cannot cause danger to the trains, because this system is designed to stop them so that nothing bad happens. But even now, when we are at the stage of delivering, for example, weapons (…), it is possible to disorganize such deliveries and that is certainly not good – said Frugalski.

The president of TOR admits that recently “the services have moved” in terms of responding to such incidents. Previously, however, it didn't look too good.

– Previously, you had to catch it, because usually when you reached it, because someone wanted to move, you used four letters and checked who was sending it. Sometimes, if I remember correctly, it was almost continuous for a year on the Warsaw-Łódź line. Finally someone caught up with these guys. Usually they are young people, after a few beers they get bored and want to pretend to be railway workers. But of course it may be that the intention is much worse, Furgalski said.

The expert noted that “the services must move”, but pointed out that there is one more problem. Namely, the court “sentenced those people who washed trains on the Warsaw-Łódź line for a year to PLN 2,800 (a fine – editor's note)”.

– And yet these are losses, because minutes of delays on the entire network, including minutes that we lose as passengers, so the leniency on the part of the services is certainly too much – he added.

The “Black and White” report also touched upon the issue of the safety of conductors' shipments. That is, those where we can send the parcel on the train to be picked up at a designated station. The report showed that no one was controlling it.

– Of course, these shipments, you could say, are obsolete and note, it's not that a decision was made yesterday, after an analysis from a few months ago, I don't want to say that tomorrow, but in the near future in Poland, the possibility of sending Intercity trains will end these shipments forever – said Furgalski. – We are moving away from this because we really wouldn't be able to finalize it. Nothing bad happened, it's better to play it safe, so courier shipments (…) will soon become a thing of the past in our country – he added.