The Ukrainian Railways joint-stock company (JSC Ukrzaliznytsia) intends to extend the route of the Warsaw - Rava-Ruska train, which is scheduled to be launched in mid-October this year on 1435 mm gauge tracks, as far as possible in the direction of Lviv.
As the CFTS portal reports, Ukrzaliznytsia’s head Yevhen Liaschenko said in an interview with the Interfax Ukraine news agency: "We are launching a project for a Warsaw - Rava-Ruska - Briukhovychi (a settlement in the suburbs of Lviv, 8 kilometers away) passenger service in October. If we want to create a full-fledged Lviv - Warsaw route, we will have to modernize the entire Rava-Ruska - Briukhovychi section (54 kilometers) in order to reach Lviv from this direction on 1435-mm gauge tracks."
Asked for clarification, Ukrzaliznytsia’s subsidiary Passenger Company told the CFTS portal that trains will start running between the Polish capital and the Rava-Ruska border station in October, as previously announced, and that the European-gauge rail tracks to Briukhovychi will be modernized and extended in October. The company’s press service indicated that the work is already nearing completion.
Commenting on the possibility of extending the European-gauge rail tracks to the Lviv railway station, Liaschenko said, "It is not realistic to lay new tracks of the 1435-mm gauge all the way to the station." "We will present a separate project for the Lviv transport hub, which will be the hub for a large number of European passenger routes and a significant volume of freight traffic," Liaschenko said in the interview. He added that modernization of the European-gauge rail tracks on the Mostyska - Sknyliv route is also necessary in this context.
As reported earlier, the Warsaw - Rava-Ruska train will perform its first trip from the Polish capital on 14 October. The train will travel in the opposite direction for the first time on 15 October. The route will be served by a railbus (diesel train) operated by Stowarzyszenie Kolejowych Przewozów Lokalnych (SKPL). Passengers will be able to change trains to/from Lviv at the Rava-Ruska station. A DPKr-3 diesel train manufactured by the Kryukov Railcar Building Works will operate in this section.
