“The colleagues at the Ukrainian railways work every day under unimaginable circumstances and risk their lives. They need our support,” said ÖBB General Director and President of the European Railway Association CER, Andreas Matthä, at a press conference with the head of Deutsche Bahn (DB) yesterday. , Richard Lutz, General Manager of Polish State Railways (PKP), Krysztof Maminski, and Vassyl Khymynets, Ukrainian Ambassador to Austria.
The heads of 30 European railway companies currently meeting in Vienna want to express their solidarity with their Ukrainian colleagues with a “Ukraine Declaration”.
Matthä referred to the role of the railways in transporting refugees free of charge and also in transporting relief supplies to the country invaded by Russia. So far, four million people have been evacuated by train, 600,000 of them abroad.
An important role is played by the railways in the transportation of grain from Ukraine, since at present transport by ship through the blocked ports is impossible.
Currently, 800,000 tons of grain are transported per month. “But there is still room for improvement,” said DB boss Lutz. Around 22 million tons of grain are currently still stored in warehouses in Ukraine.
After the end of the war, the European railways want to be involved in the reconstruction of the railways and their infrastructure. They are appealing to the EU to set up a “Rebuild Ukraine” fund to make funds for Ukraine’s railways and railway infrastructure available quickly and unbureaucratically.
Lutz said that the Ukrainian railways need to be integrated into the trans-European transport network in parallel with the admission process to the EU. The main problem at the moment is that the Ukrainian railways have a different gauge than those in neighboring countries. There is “a certain logic” to the fact that this problem will become an issue in the reconstruction and modernization of the Ukrainian railway network, said Matthä.
Source: Nachrichten
