Joint stock company JSC Ukrainian Railways is inaugurating a railway line built to Europe’s track width standard with funding from the European Union. The new 22 km, 1435 mm gauge line connects the western Ukrainian cities of Uzhhorod and Chop, facilitating freight and passenger rail connectivity...
  • Ben Matthews@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    16·
    3 months ago

    Good, this means passengers can change in Uzhgorod - a nice town, instead of Chop which is just an isolated station with big gauge-changing sheds.
    But it’s only 22km. So next step, plan a more ambitious standard gauge connection, from Suceava (Romania) via Chernivtsi, Ternopil, Lutsk to Chelm (Poland) - this could be a really useful european N-S link, skirting around the Carpathian mountains. In parallel, for balance, plan a ukranian-gauge track to Gdansk on the Baltic, to facilitate freight exports, also maybe extend the existing ukranian-gauge track which already reaches from Hrubieszow to Katowice.

    • petrescatraian@libranet.de
      2·
      3 months ago

      Suceava

      For this, it means we’ll have to build some new railways too, something which proved to be a mammoth task for all the politicians looking rather to burry our railway system instead of improving it (or it could be a boon for their plans to embezzle money, anything that works).

      • Ben Matthews@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Seems to me a win-win scenario. Remember that Ukraine is actually remarkably good at railways - especially at manufacturing large numbers of comfortable and good-value sleeper wagons, which the rest of europe lacks, and also at maintaining their system in such adverse circumstances - their punctuality today is still much better than DB. On the other hand the track routes in Ukraine are anything but direct, dating from 19th century when capital cities were Petersburg and Vienna (so they align better N-S than E-W), so there’s a lot of potential to make them straighter. The obstacles maybe rather regional mistrust - whether politicians in Suceava accept the status of Chernivtsi - a similar question as whether hungarians / slovakians accept Uzhhorod, polish Lutsk or Kovel,…? Better passenger transport links could help to build trust.

    • Ben Matthews@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      Another trans-european link I should have mentioned for longer term planning - considering that Lukashenka won’t be in the way forever, is a ukrainian-gauge line from Riga to Odesa - reviving already existing connections (and to balance that - a polish gauge line Bialystok - Grodno - Vilnius , complementing rail baltica).

  • Tuukka R@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    6·
    3 months ago

    This is the second one, actually. Hungarian trains started serving Mukachevo already years ago.

    • Ben Matthews@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      Ah yes, I see it on openrailwaymap, which also indicates mixed gauge all the way along the Tisza valley to Vinohradiv, also a ukranian gauge line from Uzhhorod to Kosice - are these still operating ?