The Ukrainian Railways joint-stock company (JSC Ukrzaliznytsia), the Belarusian railways, the Lithuanian railways, the Containerships company, and the Intermodal Container Service company have agreed to launch a new regular container train on the route Klaipeda/Draugyste - Kiana - Slovechne - Brovary/Odesa Port.
JSC Ukrzaliznytsia announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.
The four parties signed an agreement on the launch of the train in Odesa on May 28. It will be called the Containerships train. It will transport large containers.
The train will operate weekly in both directions. During the first phase of the project, the Brovary station will be the container train’s final destination.
"The Containerships train will be the 21st container train to pass through Ukraine and the 18th to operate on a regular basis," JSC Ukrzaliznytsia’s head Yevhen Kravtsov said.
As reported, JSC Ukrzaliznytsia launched a container train on the Nizhnedniprovsk-Uzel – Slawkow (Poland) route in April.
A China-Hungary container train passing through Ukraine was test-launched in the same month.
A new international container train from Belarus to Romania began operating through Ukraine on March 6.
In addition, a container train is expected to be launched through the Trans-Caspian corridor in early summer. The train will transport cargo on the China-Europe-China route through Ukraine. In particular, it will pass through the territories of Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, and Poland. On the return journey, it will pass through the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
As the CFTS portal reported, over 125,000 TEU of containers were transported by rail through Ukrainian territory during the first four months of 2019. This is 8% higher than the volume in the corresponding period of 2018. The volume of freight transportation by container trains increased by 70% to 44,300 TEU in the first four months of this year, which was 36% of the total volume of containers transported through Ukraine during that period.
