Polregio S.A. (ehem. Przewozy Regionalne)

Updated: August 2026 – Some companies you recognise by their livery, some by their keeper marking. Polregio S.A. is recognised above all by the fact that it has two names. The company previously traded as Przewozy Regionalne, and you still come across both names today – in archives, in fleet lists, and sometimes on the same train. This page explains what a rebranding means in practice and how to deal with it.

What is Polregio S.A.?

Polregio S.A. is a Polish railway operator in regional passenger rail. The suffix S.A. stands for spółka akcyjna and is equivalent to a public limited company; the other common Polish legal form, Sp. z o.o., is equivalent to a GmbH.

The name itself is a blend of “Polska” and “Regio”. Before that, the company traded as Przewozy Regionalne – literally “regional transport”, so a plain description of the business area. The operator emerged from the state railway group PKP, whose abbreviation you still encounter everywhere in Poland today. Alongside this nationwide operator, Poland has several regional passenger companies, such as Koleje Mazowieckie or Arriva RP. Which company provides which service depends on service contracts and changes with each tender.

What a rebranding actually changes

A rebranding takes effect immediately on paper – in reality it happens in stages. The commercial register, the website and timetables carry the new name quickly. Vehicles, platform signage, uniforms and inventory lists follow only gradually.

For spotters, that means: the name on the vehicle is a timestamp, not an error. A train with old lettering tells you it hasn’t had a corresponding workshop visit since the change. That makes such photographs valuable as documentation – and they become rarer every year.

Level	Changes …	Meaning for research
Trading name in the register	immediately on the effective date	authoritative for official information
Website, timetable information	usually very quickly	current source, not a historical record
Vehicle markings	spread over years	reveals the state of processing
Livery and logo	with each overhaul	transitional and mixed states possible
Archives, forums, photo portals	not at all	old name remains permanently in the record
Vehicle number	usually not	most reliable search key over time

The fourth row is especially underestimated. A livery is rarely swapped all at once, but vehicle by vehicle during workshop visits that were due anyway. That creates mixed states: a new logo on the old colour scheme, new lettering next to old markings, partly covered-over areas. Such transitional states sometimes exist for only a few months on a single vehicle – and are later barely verifiable, because they appear in no official overview. That’s exactly why carefully dated sightings from a period of change are worth more than any fleet list.

The last row is the most important: the vehicle number outlasts renamings. Anyone who notes it can still identify a sighting even once the company name is a different one entirely. How the number is structured is explained in the guide to the UIC number.

Searching an archive under two names

Anyone researching a renamed company who only types in the current name sees, at best, half the picture. Archives are sorted by when they were created, not by today’s commercial register.

Vehicles in Polish regional traffic

The Polish class-naming scheme is a help when company names change: the vehicle designation stays. Two letters and a number reveal the type of traction and purpose – E stands for electric, S for diesel (spalinowy), the second letter for the intended use.

In regional service, that mainly means electric multiple units. The EN57 has defined the picture for decades; E for electric, N for multiple unit. Newer vehicles such as the Newag Impuls follow the same logic. A second major supplier in the country is PESA Bydgoszcz, whose multiple units are designated on the same scheme. On non-electrified lines and in secondary service you’ll find diesel locomotives such as the SM42 / SU42 family, where S names the type of traction.

The electrified Polish network runs on 3 kV DC; it’s operated by PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe, not by the passenger operators. Which class runs on which service on which day is a diagram matter and changes – the letter-and-number logic doesn’t.

For research, that’s a real advantage: vehicle designations are independent of the company name. A class keeps its abbreviation even if the operator has rebranded three times over. So if you’re searching an archive for a particular type, the class designation is a more stable starting point than the company name – and it leads you to sources from every naming phase at once. Only in the second step do you narrow down, via date and location, which operational state is meant.

In the field, that means: seek out stations where regional traffic runs in volume. At Kraków Główny, regional services from several directions converge, and older and newer multiple-unit families stand side by side. At Wrocław Główny, the same holds true beneath one of the country’s most impressive station halls. And Warszawa Centralna shows how regional and long-distance traffic overlap in a confined space.

Logging sightings so they survive a rebranding

A common mistake with renamed companies is retroactively “tidying up” one’s own collection: old entries get rewritten to the new name so everything looks consistent. That destroys exactly the information that makes the record interesting – namely which name was current when. It’s better to leave the historical entry as it is and carry the current trading name as an additional field.

Anyone researching systematically in the Polish rail scene will find entry points and search tips in the guide to spotting in Poland.

Common mix-ups

• Two names, two companies – Polregio and Przewozy Regionalne are the same company at different stages, not two separate operators.
• Old lettering equals error – no. Vehicles with earlier markings are historical evidence.
• Confusing regional operators – alongside Polregio, several companies run by voivodeships operate under their own names.
• Regional and long-distance traffic – loco-hauled trains exist in both categories. Only the train category and stopping pattern tell them apart; PKP Intercity runs the long-distance services.
• Keeper and operator – the keeper marking in the data panel names the keeper, not necessarily the company running the train.

Conclusion

Polregio is the textbook case for a problem you’ll meet all over Europe: companies get renamed, vehicles don’t. Anyone who knows both names, notes the vehicle number and files every sighting with a date has records that will survive the next rebranding too.