Railroad operators in the Czech Republic and Poland have temporarily canceled a number of flights due to flooding, including, according to Czech RegioJet, a temporary suspension of traffic on the section between Ostrava and Olomouc, Czech Republic, which is used by the company’s trains from Prague to Przemysl and Chop.
“We ask all passengers to postpone their current trips between Ostrava and Olomouc or Przeworów. We will inform you about further developments,” the company said on its website.
For its part, Ukrzaliznytsia clarified that as of now, both RegioJet trains from Prague to Chop and Przemysl are still in the Czech Republic and have no chance of catching their connecting Ukrainian flights.
“Therefore, we remind you that we are ready to accept passengers with tickets for today’s trains for any of our flights of the same destination in the next day to any available seats without exchanging tickets,” the Ukrainian railroad operator said.
As for passengers from Ukraine traveling to their connection in the Prague direction, Ukrzaliznytsia recommended contacting the Czech or Polish railway operator to clarify the schedule of the next flights.
“There is a high probability that passengers should plan to spend the night in the city of connection,” UZ said.
Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov during the forum in Lugano (Switzerland) on Tuesday, July 5, presented a number of planned projects for the development of the country’s railway export infrastructure.
According to the information in the presentation that Kubrakov presented, in particular, among the projects: construction of new and modernization of existing railway lines (both 1435 and 1520 mm) in the direction of the border with the EU and the seaports of the Danube; modernization of rolling stock for freight traffic; modernization of equipment for changing the gauge.
The total cost of these projects is $1.5 billion.
Hungary has included the railway in the list of possible transit routes for Ukrainian citizens, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
“A week ago, Peter Szijjarto and I agreed that Hungary would allow transit to Austria for Ukrainians traveling by train. The Hungarian government has fulfilled the agreement and included the railway in transit routes just when the visa-free regime is being restored. We are expanding the freedom of travel of Ukrainians,” Kuleba wrote in Twitter on Thursday.
JSC Ukrzaliznytsia wants at least 50% of tourists traveling throughout Ukraine to choose the railway, head of Ukrzaliznytsia Volodymyr Zhmak said.
“In these conditions, we pay attention to domestic tourism, since external tourism is going through hard times. Ukrzaliznytsia considers domestic tourism to be one of those directions that can develop and bring funds to the Ukrainian economy. We want to reach a target of 50% of all tourists who travel in Ukraine. Encourage them to change buses to our comfortable passenger cars,” Zhmak said during a roundtable with the State Agency for Tourism Development of Ukraine and tour operators in Kyiv on Thursday.
The head of Ukrzaliznytsia said that the company is already working in this direction.
“We are already lowering the cost of tickets in the first class, we provide a flexible system of discounts for the redemption of tickets long before the departure date. In addition, we reduce a group booking rate. If earlier tour operators had to pay UAH 200 for a tourist of the group, then we reduce it to UAH 80. And then we will introduce a scale: the larger the group, the less you [tour operators] pay for each member of the group,” he said.
Euroterminal LLC has begun the construction of an access railway track to Odesa-Peresyp railway station with a throughput of up to 1 million tonnes of cargo per year.
“The railway line, which is being built by Euroterminal, will allow handling a larger volume of containers, reduce the load on city streets from the movement of heavy vehicles and reduce the costs of shippers, forwarders and other participants in the transport process. In addition, the new railroad will become an additional incentive for the development of logistics of the “dry port” and the adjacent territories as well,” the press service quoted the general director of Euroterminal, Oleksandr Eismont.
According to the company, up to 20% of containerized cargo is transported to Odesa seaport by rail, the rest by road.
Euroterminal notes that this is due to the discrepancy between the throughput of the railway tracks of the port and Odesa-Port station. The throughput of Odesa-Port railway station is 792 wagons per day, while the port is capable of handling several times more wagons.
“This is especially noticeable during peak loads on the railway in spring and autumn, when grain is sent for export from the port’s sea terminals. This is explained by the fact that the port is within the city and it is almost impossible to develop railway infrastructure,” the report says.
Ukraine and France may sign an agreement within the framework of the Mixed Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation in the near future, Head of the Ukrainian side of the commission, Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov has said.
“We have been working on the details of a common project with the French side for a long time and in the near future we can reach an intergovernmental agreement that will fully meet the needs of Ukraine. Including the requirements set by the President of Ukraine regarding the localization of production at Ukrainian enterprises,” Avakov said at a meeting with CEO of ALSTOM Henri Poupart-Lafarge on Tuesday, the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine reports.
At a meeting with the participation of the French Ambassador to Ukraine Etienne de Poncins and the general director of Ukrzaliznytsia Volodymyr Zhmak, the parties discussed the prospects for implementation of the ALSTOM electric locomotive supply project with partial localization of their production and maintenance in Ukraine.
“We have a very outdated fleet of locomotives and we need to strategically update it. At this stage, we are interested in 50 two-system electric locomotives capable of transporting from 5,500 to 6,000 tonnes of cargo. We need these locomotives with a long-term maintenance system and localized production in Ukraine. At the second stage, we are interested in obtaining single-system locomotives,” Zhmak said during the negotiations.
Poupart-Lafarge, in turn, assured that ALSTOM could be a reliable and long-term partner for Ukrzaliznytsia and Ukraine.
“We have been working on the market for many years and we can meet the needs of Ukrzaliznytsia. ALSTOM has experience in working in markets with the localization of production and service capacities. This strengthens our cooperation and creates new jobs. In particular, we work in this way in Kazakhstan and South Africa,” he said.
De Poncins said that over the past two years, taking into account the active implementation of helicopter (Airbus Helicopters) and ship (OSEA) projects of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, a humanitarian project to improve water supply in Mariupol with the prospect of its spread to Luhansk region, the total cost of all economic cooperation programs between Ukraine and France is EUR 800 million.
