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Poland did not support the idea of building a new broad-gauge railway for Ukraine

07 December
2022

Poland did not support the idea of building a new broad-gauge railway for Ukraine

 

The Ministry of Infrastructure of Poland reported that there are currently no plans to build a new broad-gauge railway from Ukraine to Polish seaports.

"According to the plans to expand the TEN-T network with railway lines located on the territory of Ukraine, as well as on the basis of plans and cooperation regarding the integration of the railway network of Ukraine with the railway infrastructure of Poland (1435 mm), no works related to the construction of railway tracks are planned with a distance of 1,520 mm from Ukraine to seaports in the Baltic Sea," the agency emphasized.

The spokesman of the Ministry of Infrastructure, Shymon Khuptis, added that in accordance with long-term agreements at the bilateral and EU level, Rail Baltica will play a significant role in freight transportation.

As Khuptys added, the European Union does not foresee subsidizing the expansion of the 1,520 mm railway infrastructure from EU sources.

We will remind that the head of "Ukrzaliznytsia" Oleksandr Kamyshin drew attention to the safety aspect of the project: "The European Union will not even consider such a proposal from a safety point of view. Especially at a time like now, because broad gauge is the standard of the Russian Federation. And from an economic point of view the construction of such a track will take 6-7 years, so such a project has no reason to exist now."

The Polish transport department added that they consider investments in a new broad-gauge railway to be pointless in the current situation, recalling the statements of the Prime Minister of Ukraine, who announced in the spring about the gradual transition of Ukraine to the European gauge (1435 mm).