The Ukrainian Railways public joint-stock company (Ukrzaliznytsia) is considering leasing locomotives from other countries for transportation of freight during the upcoming peak period, the CFTS portal reports, citing information from Ukrzaliznytsia.
This was discussed at a meeting of transport workers and shippers at the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine (ACC) on August 2. Ukrzaliznytsia’s Director for Economics and Finance Andrii Riazantsev said that Ukrzaliznytsia plans to lease rolling stock on the domestic and foreign markets to solve the problem of insufficient locomotives during peak periods of freight transportation. According to him, Ukrzaliznytsia’s representatives are currently discussing such a possibility with their Kazakh and Belarusian counterparts.
He also said that after acquiring new traction rolling stock, Ukrzaliznytsia would send it to the most heavily stressed railway sections, including the Kamysh-Zoria – Volnovakha railway stretch.
As the CFTS portal reported, the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure recently said that Georgia was ready to provide up to 40 locomotives to Ukraine during peak freight-transport periods in the autumn. However, Ukrzaliznytsia later told the CFTS portal that it had no information about or details of the Georgian initiative on transfer of locomotives to Ukraine for temporary use.
Besides, many experts believe that Georgian electric locomotives are technically not suitable for operation on the Odesa Railway and that if they arrive in Ukraine, it would be more appropriate to use them on the Prydniprovskyi Railway. However, neither the Ministry of Infrastructure nor Ukrzaliznytsia commented on this aspect of the issue.
As reported, there was an acute shortage of locomotive traction, wagons, and fuel last autumn, with idling of rolling stock jeopardizing the implementation of export contracts by Ukrainian shippers. The shortage of locomotive traction at the time was about 600.
