Ukrzaliznytsia JSC (UZ) is negotiating with the Romanian side to implement a project that will extend the connection from the recently opened Valia-Visheului station to major cities in Romania, and continues to develop the connection between Ukrainian regional centers and international destinations, UZ board member Alexander Pertsovsky told Interfax-Ukraine Agency.
“We continue to develop international connections. We have already made the first steps to connect western Ukraine with Romania. So far it is one small station Valya-Visheului, but we are working with the Romanian side to extend messages to major cities on the Romanian side,” – said Pertsovsky.
According to him, there is a wide track (1520 mm) in this direction, on which ordinary Ukrainian cars will be able to pass.
As previously reported, last year UZ repaired sections Rakhiv – Dilove – Valya Visheului (19.2 km of track, 12 bridges), and also held repairs of the station in Rakhiv. This allowed to bring back to life a section of the railroad, which has not functioned since 2011, and to run trains number 755/756 and number 753/754 Rakhiv-Valya-Visheului-Rakhiv. Also, the section at the border with Romania, Teresva – border, which had not functioned since 2007, was repaired. There are also two international crossings between Ukraine and Romania, through which only freight traffic is carried out: Vadul-Siret-Dornesti and Dyakovo-Halmeu.
In general, due to active launching of new international communications, the number of passengers traveling in international directions from Ukraine has increased by 9 times, said Pertsovskyi, without specifying absolute numbers.
He pointed out that the most popular destination is Poland. Every day, UZ receives up to 2 thousand or more requests to buy tickets for the train Kyiv-Warsaw. As reported, to provide more seats, on February 19, UZ launched a service that allows people from Kharkiv to go to Kyiv and Kyiv-Warsaw train to Helm, where passengers can arrive in Warsaw at the same time as the passengers of direct train Kyiv-Warsaw with an interchange. Now there are 8 cars with the occupancy of 95%. In the future there may be up to 10 of them. Also on February 19 UZ started one more train Kharkiv-Peremyshl.
According to Pertsovsky, UZ will continue to develop the direction of communication of the regions in the direction of international destinations.
“We will continue to work with the Polish direction. We see that the routes connecting the same Kharkiv work effectively. We will see to what extent Dnipro, Odessa… Because since the beginning of the war we have got communication with Europe not only the capital, but also Dnipro, Zaporozhye, Odessa, Vinnitsa. And we look at the demand in these directions to assess plans for further development”, – said a member of the board of UZ.
