EN
The railways had an enormous impact on the development of industry in the Kingdom of Poland. However, putting the first Warsaw-Vienna railway line into service did not influence the economic situation in the Kingdom positively. Not before building the branch Zabkowice-Szopienice-Katowice (1859), which connected Warsaw Industrial District with Zaglebie Dabrowskie, it brought about the development of industry in the Kingdom. Having launched the Lódz Fabryczna railway line into service (1866), one could observe a dynamic increase of production in three main centres of industry of the Kingdom of Poland - in Lódz, and Industrial District of Sosnowiec and Czestochowa. The construction of the Warsaw and Petersburg (1862), Warsaw and Terespol (1866-1870), Moscow and Brzesc (1872), and Kiev and Brzesc (1873) railway lines opened a receptive Russian market for industry of the Kingdom of Poland. Since the nineties of the 19th century till 1914 about 60 to 90 % of the Kingdom production (textile trade, metal and mechanical industry, metallurgic and pit-coal branch) was exported into the Russian Empire. However, the Russian strategic principles had a negative influence on the development of the railway system in the Kingdom. Till 1914 in many regions it was not permitted to build any railway lines which slowed down their economic development. In these conditions the construction of the narrow-gauge railways was initiated. Finally, after 1900, when the authorities of a province and not of the Ministry of Transport began to give permission to build broad-gauge railways the situation improved. Among others, it happened in the case of the railways of Kujawy, Lubelszczyzna and agglomeration of Warsaw and Lódz (in the neighbourhood of Lódz the narrow-gauge railways were replaced with tramways).