UZ Cargo Poland, a subsidiary of the Ukrainian Railways joint-stock company (Ukrzaliznytsia), intends to become a full-fledged railway operator in Poland. To do so, the company needs at least one locomotive.
Ukrzaliznytsia’s Director of Commercial Operations and Logistics Tymofii Murakhovskyi stated this in an interview with the CFTS portal.
According to Murakhovskyi, UZ Cargo Poland currently has neither railcars nor locomotives. The company currently provides primarily freight forwarding services to customers.
"We are currently working to obtain the appropriate transport license. To do this, it is necessary to have a locomotive. If you only have railcars, then you are a railcar owner and you will not be able to perform transportation because you will have nothing to pull these railcars with... One of the main requirements is to have at least one locomotive," he told the CFTS portal.
Asked whether this was a question of certification in Poland of the locomotives that are already part of Ukrzaliznytsia’s fleet, Murakhovskyi said: "We are talking specifically about purchasing and not using the existing rolling stock that is currently transporting cargo in Ukraine. This decision is because the rolling stock currently used on the 1520-mm gauge needs to be certified for operation in Poland. This is quite a complicated procedure. Our colleagues from Lithuania tried to do it, they spent almost a year on it, but they failed."
He added that the company plans to purchase or lease locomotives.
UZ Cargo Poland was registered in the summer of last year. As recently reported, UZ Cargo Poland will provide a range of international transportation services, including payment of railway tariffs in Romania and Poland and freight forwarding outside Ukraine.
It may also be recalled that the management of Ukrzaliznytsia stated in 2022 that it did not see the need to allow locomotives belonging to carriers based in the European Union to travel on the Ukrzaliznytsia rail network to border stations inside Ukraine.
