UZ has increased the number of trolleys for the Eurotrack by 10 times since the beginning of the war

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine, Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) has increased the number of trolleys for moving rolling stock on the 1435 mm track by almost 10 times – to 2.9 thousand units. This was announced by the deputy director of the commercial work department of the UZ Valery Tkachev, reports Rail.Insider.

“As a result of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation and the blocking of ports, Ukrainian business had to rebuild logistics. Most of the shippers routed their goods through border crossings and faced a shortage of Eurotruck trolleys. At the end of February, their number was about 300 units, but due to the constant need, the indicator had to be increased to 2.9 thousand units,” he said.

About 1,600 trolleys are fixed at the interchange points at the Vdul-Siret station. Despite this, the border point with Romania continues to experience a shortage of trolleys, primarily due to large number of railcars standing in lines to the Romanian port of Constanta. Currently, the turnover of rolling stock on this route exceeds 17 days.

But, according to Valery Tkachev, it is currently impossible to increase the number of trolleys further, because there is not enough space for their storage.

As GMK Center reported earlier, as of August 18, almost 29,000 railcars are standing in the direction of border crossings compared to 31,600 units at the beginning of the month. Over the past week, the number of rolling stock standing in queues, despite the stable monthly dynamics of reduction, has not changed.

The main problem for exporting is the different track width. In Europe the width of the railway track is 1435 mm, while in Ukraine it is 1520 mm. The Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine estimates the cost of the transition of one railway line to Eurotrack at $2-3 billion.

As the Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal said earlier, Ukraine will start gradually switch to the European track to connect the Ukrainian railway with the European Union. Initially, it is planned to connect major nodes and large cities, and in the future, gradual expansion throughout the country is planned.