Rail transport in Ukraine

Ukraine is a part of the world’s railroads. Its location in the heart of Europe allowed it to become part of important gauge routes, including the New Silk Road.

New Silk Road and Ukraine
In June 2015, Chinese Ambassador Zhang Xiyun said at a meeting with Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Andrei Pivovarsky that Chinese banks are ready to invest in infrastructure in Ukraine as part of the New Silk Road initiative. The first demonstration train, which had 10 cars and 20 forty-foot containers, left Illichyvsk seaport on January 15, 2016 and on the night of January 31 it arrived at its destination at the Dostyk station of the Kazakh railway, at the border with China. The total duration of the route was 15.5 days instead of the previously announced 11-12 days. And only in January 2020, trains from China to the EU began to frequently transit through Ukraine, 4 years after the first demonstration train.

In less than a year, the state railroad operator, together with carriers from other countries, managed to establish train traffic on two routes. On the first of them “China – Mongolia – Russia – Ukraine – Hungary / Slovakia” for 11 months passed 21 trains with a final stop in Hungary (1864 containers). The second route “China – Kazakhstan – Russia – Ukraine – Slovakia / Hungary / Poland” was more popular. 34 trains passed on it and transported 3130 containers in 2020-2021 .

In addition, from June 2020 direct container trains from China began to arrive regularly at the station Kyiv-Lisky. They brought 1,374 containers to Ukraine. They are sent from central and northeastern China, in particular from Wuhan, Yantai, Nanchang, Jinannan, Hengang and Xinzhu (Xi’an) stations.

Trains from China bring to Ukraine quite a wide range of goods: non-ferrous metals and plastics, drilling pipes, fertilizers, medical and pharmaceutical equipment, light industrial goods and many other general cargoes.

Freight traffic between Poland and Ukraine
The length of Ukrainian railroad lines is about 20 thousand km, the third in Europe. Rail tracks connect all major mining and heavy industry companies, as well as leading seaports.
Due to the different rail gauges in the countries of the former USSR, transshipment stations with 1435 mm and 1524/1520 mm track systems had to be built at the Ukrainian-Polish border.
In addition to transshipment, it is also possible to store the majority of cargo and provide comprehensive logistics services. Within the transshipment terminals, there are storage and warehousing yards, as well as it is possible to segregate, pack, crush and defrost bulk cargo in winter, and in the case of cargo unsuitable for transshipment – to use the changeover communication (exchange of carriages in wagons). The reloading is performed using ramps or flyovers by gravity and mechanically on storage surfaces and yards, as well as by means of specialized reloading equipment: overhead cranes, cranes, excavators, forklifts, depending on the mass and type of cargo. There is also a possibility of reloading goods of plant origin, wood and others. On the area of Medyka and Żurawica there are respectively 5 and 1 reloading terminals

Ukraine – Poland border

The modern border between Ukraine and Poland was formed after the end of World War II, and formally since the independence of Ukraine from August 24, 1991. The length of the border is 535 km, which is one of the largest external borders of the European Union.
Interregional cooperation is an important component of the strategic partnership between Ukraine and the Republic of Poland, an effective means of European integration of Ukraine, as well as a practical mechanism for implementing European standards at the regional and local levels.

There are three big border crossings between Ukraine and Poland: Mostyska II, Izov and Yahotyn, but Mostyska II is the exceptional one because it facilitates container traffic while other two don’t have this infrastructure.