The Polish railway company PKP LHS, which operates on the Hrubieszow-Slawkow broad-gauge railway line, has entered into a cooperation agreement with the Belintertrans forwarding company, which is part of the Belarusian Railways. This will give the Polish railway operator an opportunity to establish transportation of goods from China and Central Asia through Russia and Belarus, the PKP LHS told the CFTS portal.
"We are looking for alternative routes that will increase the potential for development of our route in the east," the company said in a statement. According to PKP LHS, a number of customers are interested in delivering cargoes from Asia via Russia and Belarus without transferring them from broad-gauge railcars to euro-gauge railcars.
PKP LHS does not have a direct link to the of Belarusian Railways network. Therefore, goods coming from Belarus will pass through the territory of Ukraine, specifically the Zabolotye-Kovel-Izov line, which connects transshipment complexes in Brest with the Hrubieszow-Slawkow broad-gauge rail line.
As reported, PKP LHS became a participant in the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, which connects China to Europe and passes through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Ukraine, in in October 2016. This route is an alternative to the traditional one that passes through the territories of Russia, Belarus, Poland, and Germany. The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route has two bottlenecks: the Caspian and Black Seas, where wagons are transferred from tracks onto ferries and vice versa.
