The State Railway Administration (Ukrzaliznytsia) intends to create a shunting company to provide services involving supply of traction to train stations for shippers, as well as to engage in transportation. Ukrzaliznytsia’s acting General Director Oleksandr Zavhorodnyi announced this in an interview with the CFTS portal.
"We are considering establishing within the corporation a shunting company that will engage in import, export, and transportation. Because locomotives will go toward freight or passenger transportation, and our shunting operations will thus fall away. So far, such an idea exists," he said.
For example, he said that stations adjacent to river terminals are small and require a lot of shunting operations. "In practice, all these small stations that are located in river ports - there are 6-7 tracks for loading and the lengths of the tracks are for 12-15 railcars. It is clear that the cost of our shunting operations will be higher than it would be if we provided railcars and took them out directly," Zavhorodnyi said.
He expressed confident that carriers with their own locomotives would definitely emerge on the market because the law on railways provides for this possibility.
"It (private traction) will emerge whether we like it or not. Why will they emerge? Because those that currently transport goods on routes have their own rolling stock, and they will have the right to demand their own locomotives under the law," he said.
