>>881042When You look on this map (I know, poor quality) You'll still see borders of Polish XIX partitions in 1989; Russian and partially Austrian part was severely underdeveloped. Between the wars there was some development, but after WWII Polish railroad network had to be virtually built from scratch. Polish commies do it so well so Polish rails in 1989 were probably the worst of all European communist states; declining traffic and underinvestment of 90's didn't help. After 2000, there were a little better times for rail transport in Poland, but it network density lowered significally since 1989.
Czechoslovakia and Hungary have better and denser network in 1918, it suffered less in WWII i think, maybe even run better in the communist era, so have higher starting level in 1989 - and AFAIK, they started modern management reforms in early 90's (Communism on Polish State Rails lasts until 2000 :-)
