Ukrainian Railways plans to launch 14 new train routes with 3 int'l ones in 2024

MOSCOW. Nov 21 (Interfax) - Ukrainian Railways is planning to launch 14 new train routes, including 11 domestic and three international ones, in 2024, Ukrainian media quoted Ukrainian Railways CEO Yevgeny Lyashchenko as saying at a presentation of new train schedules and routes for 2024 in Kiev on Tuesday.

In particular, there will be a new Dnepr-Chelm train, as well as the planned launch of the Chop-Prague and Chop-Vienna trains jointly with the Czech company RegioJet. The new Dnepr-Chelm train with a convenient connection towards Warsaw will allow passengers traveling from Dnepr to reach Warsaw four hours sooner than via Przemysl, Ukrainian Railways said.

"We are presenting 11 new domestic train routes and three international ones. In general, we will perform 22 international train trips thanks to the new schedule," Lyashchenko said, noting that there were nine international train trips in early 2022.

Ukrainian Railways has almost made up for the traffic of regular flights in terms of transportation volumes. The company is expecting to reach the pre-crisis volume of passenger traffic of 24.7 million to 24.8 million passengers in 2023, including around 2 million in the international traffic, the company's head said.

The launch of new trains also became possible thanks to the work done by Ukrainian Railways to repair the infrastructure, Lyashchenko said. "This is a huge work in terms of infrastructure. This year we have repaired almost 300 kilometers of tracks. Almost 70 kilometers are heavy infrastructure that was not used. We have fully restored it now," the Ukrainian Railways CEO said.