Never to be seen again [2]

Due to the bad situation in the sand mine Kotlarnia and the issue it has faced on its ralway side, there has been another place, where the KPK TEM2 locomotives have been withdrawn from service in recent weeks - the infamous coal mine Sośnica, which has been the last place of service for SM31 locomotives.

 

Its enormous, climatic spoil tip has atrracted many railfans both from Poland and abroad. Since the end of the SM31 class in late 2023, PKP Cargo Service has borrowed a couple of TEM2 locomotives from KPK and they were deployed all around Silesia... until September of 2024. Kotlarnia started having problems with the national railways departament and was asked to withdraw most of its TEM2 locomotives from service, like in KWK Staszic.

 

To combat this, PKP Cargo Service made the decission to 'import' Czech class 740 locomotives from PKP Cargo International, which acquired them by incorporating AWT. As Vojta reports, numbers 426 and 887 were brought into the coal mine Sośnica. Other locomotives are also to be distributed to KWK Staszic for shunting duties.

 

Thus, we won't get to see a TEM2 locomotive in this place in the near future and trains like the one pictured are already history. It shows TEM2-107 climbing up to the mining waste tipping point with a long set of loaded Fas carriages.

More pictures from my trip here and here

 

Photo by Piotrek/Toprus

Done