the profitability of a service can be improved by the replacement of a money-losing locomotive and sometimes only one carriage consist with a diesel railcar. All this has meant a sharp decline in the demand for diesel traction, and the diesel ranks are experiencing increasingly greater reductions. Once frequent encounters with local passenger trains led by a diesel locomotive are rarer and rarer, and it's ever more difficult to find such trains on PKP routes. We have prepared a real treat for those who wish to see trains still operating with diesel traction. Our editorial colleague Pawel Czech has developed a list of line segments served by locomotive classes SP32, SP42, SU42, SU45 and SU46. On pages 12÷15 is a table of segments, organized according to assigned region as well as by typical train consist. The accompanying map should facilitate finding these lines on the PKP network.

The first railway reached Bytom from the direction of Tarnowska Gora in July 1868, built by the Right Bank of the Odra Railway Company (R.O.U.E.). The city’s first railway station was built at that time. Shortly thereafter, this time on a line from Gliwice, another station was built—the same station which exists to this day. For several decades, two independent railway stations functioned side by side, laying on two different lines belonging to competing railway companies. The first station, as well as the line on which it was situated, unfortunately didn’t survive until our day. On pages 22÷43 editorial colleague Robert Ślęzok acquaints us with the history of the R.O.U.E., its line from Szarlej to Chorzów Stary, and presents numerous traces of this route which remain to this day.
 

Andrzej Piotrowski (a.k.a. „Dracula”) spent his 2002 vacation on the railway line around Konotop. At that time the line was closed, in spite of the existence of as many as three railway customers in the Konotop area. Among other goods, wood was exported from the Konotop area, a movement which is unprofitable for the railway. At the same time, wood was carried to nearby Grodzisk Wlkp. from... Estonia! From this and other examples our colleague Andrzej tries to understand the complexities of railway economics, e.g. the unprofitability of transporting wood from nearby Konotop versus the profitable transport of this wood from Estonia, which, we add, is first transported to one of the ports on the Baltic, then travels by ship to a port in Germany where it is transloaded to railway cars for movement to Grodzisk Wlkp., and from there taken by truck to a furniture factory with a German owner.
 

The railway freight yard is immersed in twilight. Next to it, buildings and warehouses built from red brick are partially visible in the darkness by the light of gas lamps. Wagons sit at the dock for unloading. Some trees and shrubs limit the stream of light. The challenge we set forth, is the attempt to reproduce this climate in a hyperrealistic miniature railway landscape with a strong accent on architecture built of red klinker bricks. It’s exactly this red brick, together with elements of nature (especially in autumn), which creates a paradise for fans of old stations and unelectrified railway lines unblemished by distasteful modernity. Andrzej „Drakula” Piotrowski’s „crossing the threshold of reality” approach to reproducing klinker bricks on model buildings we present on pages 54÷61.