Tuesday, 29 September 2026
Five construction groups have advanced to the next stage of procurement for a 14.3 km section of Poland’s planned high-speed railway between Warsaw and Łódź, bringing some of the country’s largest infrastructure contractors into competition for one of the first major construction packages on the new network. The section will run between the junction serving the planned Port Polska airport and the Bolimów junction.
The shortlist consists of four consortia and one standalone bidder. STRABAG is competing alongside TYM-BUD; TORPOL has partnered with MIRBUD and KOBYLARNIA; BUDIMEX is bidding independently; PORR has joined with Trakcja; and INTERCOR is participating with NDI and NDI Sopot. Eight bidders comprising 19 companies initially sought admission to the procurement process in July.
The selected companies will now enter detailed discussions with Centralny Port Komunikacyjny, the company responsible for delivering the Port Polska investment programme. Final offers will follow after the dialogue has been completed, meaning the shortlist does not yet represent a construction contract award. The winning contractor is scheduled to be selected and contracted no later than the fourth quarter of 2027.
The package covers considerably more than installation of railway track. The selected contractor will prepare detailed execution and technical documentation before constructing 14.3 km of railway designed for speeds of up to 350 km/h. The works are expected to include 55 engineering structures, including bridges and road and railway viaducts, as well as drainage structures, wildlife crossings and approximately 30 km of new or reconstructed roads.
The Airport–Bolimów package forms part of a wider programme dividing the Warsaw-Łódź high-speed route into several major construction sections. A separate competitive process is already progressing for approximately 13 km between Kotowice and the airport junction, while further tenders are being prepared for sections between Warszawa Zachodnia and Kotowice, around Bolimów, from Bolimów to Brzeziny and between Brzeziny and Łódź.
The railway procurement is part of a much larger pipeline of airport, transport and infrastructure work being brought to the Polish construction market. Port Polska said in August that 29 investment procurement procedures had already been launched by the end of July and another 58 were planned before the end of 2026. Its 2026–2028 programme includes more than 90 procurement procedures, with further tenders estimated at more than PLN 24bn planned for 2027 and another PLN 17bn in 2028.
The Warsaw–Łódź high-speed line is scheduled to enter operation in 2032 together with rail access to the new airport, before the wider network is extended towards Poznań and Wrocław. For Poland’s construction industry, the Airport-Bolimów shortlist provides an early indication of which contractors are positioning themselves for the substantial civil-engineering workload expected as the high-speed rail programme moves from planning and procurement towards construction.
