Dual gauge railway in Ukraine

Ukrainian railways announces restructuring plans

Dual gauge railway in Ukraine, source: Mykola Zasiadko

Ukrainian Railways will start important restructuring plans together with an increase in investments of 776.6 million euros in infrastructure, locomotives, freight wagons and passengers services. This was recently announced by chairman Volodymyr Zhmak of UZ (Ukrainian Railways). The objective of these plans is to make the organization more profitable.

Zhmak states that this new investment will significantly increase efficiency and bring the company to a sustainable level of profitability. “2021 should be a breakthrough on the way to transforming UZ from a loss-making company into a profitable business. This is not an illusion – UZ should end next year with a profit not on paper, in the form of exchange rate differences, but with real figures.”

Infrastructure and Services

UZ wants to increase the market share of rail freight operation with 1 to 21 per cent with investmentso f 209 million euros by the end of 2021. Through improvements in operating activities, the capacity the freight carries should increase from 814,000 tonnes a day to one million.

In order to eliminate the shortage of locomotives, service times will be extended. There will also be an improvement on route shipment organization. An additional 14.9 million euros will be invested in maintenance and locomotive repairs. For the modernization of freight wagons and overhaul, an investment worth 10.4 million will be made.

“Our fleet of electric locomotives dates back to the 1970’s and 80’s, and we cannot achieve our ambitious plans for the growth of freight traffic with such a fleet”. the chairman pointed out. “Therefore, we will convince our shareholder, the Ukrainian government, that we need help in this regard.” With an investment of 4.1 million euros on locomotives in 2021, UZ will begin to purchase new electric locomotives in 2022.

208.8 million euros will be spent on infrastructure and 59.7 million on passenger services. There is also a plan to purchase 100 coaches worth 80.6 million euros and a further 29.8 million to electrify the network.

“In general, these figures will be the basis of our financial plan for 2021, which we will soon present to the company’s supervisory board, the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Cabinet of Ministers”, Zhmak said.

Author: Sarah Chebaro

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