PKP Intercity has received approval from Poland’s Rail Transport Office to operate its new fleet of Pendolino trains on the country’s rail network.
The operator plans to launch its new EIC Premium service on December 14 despite a four-month delay with the homologation process.
PKP hopes to have 18 of the 20 seven-car trains ordered in 2009 ready for the start of service.
To date, 14 trainsets have been delivered from Alstom’s Savigliano factory in Italy, which is also building eight ETR 610 Pendolino units for Swiss operator SBB.
During dynamic testing, Poland’s new intercity train broke both and the Pendolino record, reaching a top speed of 293 km\h.
The Pendolinos will reduce travel times between Warsaw and Krakow by an hour.
Just to let you know, the train PKP bought are not equipped with the tilting mechanism.
From my limited experience, Warsaw-Krakow isn’t a very twisty route – is it?
You’re right. Most of the lines that Pendolino’s are to operate on are rather straight stretches. Tilting mechanism would add a lot to the cost and wouldn’t cut journey times by too much.