Ukrainian railway: 10 facts you didn't know
Ancient railways and functioning steam locomotives, the longest route in Ukraine, and your own diner-lounge car
Today is July 10, Railroad Worker Day. Traditionally, on this day, people celebrate the professional merits and achievements of railway workers. We decided to collect the most interesting facts about this industry.
📌 Railway tourism is developing in Ukraine: you can take a ride in a steam locomotive "like in a movie." This type of tourism is growing in developed countries and is gradually becoming more and more popular. Previously, locomotive tours were organized only for foreigners for crazy money, but now they're available for everyone. One of these tours can be found in the village museum Kolochava in Zakarpattia, and this year another route Haivoron-Bershad-Haivoron was launched on the occasion of Steam Locomotive Day.
📌The old narrow-gauge railways are still operating in Ukraine. There are five of them left from the 19th century: "Carpathian tram," "Polissia tram," Borzhava, Kolochava, and Haivoron narrow-gauge railways. But a century ago there were dozens of them only in the Carpathian region. They were built temporarily or to transport goods, and now they're mainly presented as a museum exhibit.
📌In terms of the freight traffic extent, Ukraine's railways occupy fourth place on the Eurasian continent. We are second only to China, Russia, and India, even though the traffic density of Ukrainian railways (annual traffic per 1 km) is 3-5 times higher than this indicator in developed countries, according to Ukrzaliznytsia. The total length of the railways in operation today, excluding the occupied territories, is 19.8 thousand kilometers.
📌You can travel on Ukrainian railways in your own diner-lounge car. Ukrzaliznytsia provides such an opportunity to everyone. The diner-lounge car is a real hotel on wheels, equipped with a kitchen, a large living room, and a spacious sleeping compartment. The kitchen is equipped with a refrigerator, microwave, and electric stove. The large hall is equipped with a seating area, computer, audio, and video equipment. The sleeping compartment has a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, air conditioning, and a bathroom. The number of seats ranges from 5 to 11 (depending on the car design). And these cars are also equipped with special compartments for guards and service personnel. You should order the ride in the diner-lounge car in advance, but no later than 5 working days before the train departure, and submit a written application. The fare is equivalent to the sum of 11 tickets for adult passengers at the fare of an "SV" soft carriage with double compartments of the corresponding train category using calendar price indexation.
📌Since the end of the 19th century, trains looked a little doll-like, because cars of various classes were painted in different colors: I class was blue, II class was yellow, III class was green, IV class was gray. There were also the so-called "mixed cars" of mixed class: the floor of the car of one class, the floor of the car of another. In this case, each half of the carriage was painted in the color of its class. Today, such a gradation is no longer resorted to.
📌The maximum speed of modern "Intercity" and "Intercity+" trains can be up to 160 km h, although, in reality, the figures are much lower. On average, high-speed trains travel no faster than 96 km/h because of the poor quality of the railroad tracks. Only in some directions, such as Kyiv-Kharkiv and Kyiv-Lviv, the speed sometimes reaches 110 km h. The average passenger train usually travels the track at an average speed of 50 km/h. But there are also positive forecasts: the Minister of Infrastructure promised that in 2030 the tracks will be updated, and the trains will still run across Ukraine at a speed of 350 km/h.
📌The oldest railway bridge on the territory of Ukraine was built in the 1860s. It crosses the Inhul River in the northwestern part of Kropyvnytskyi and is a brick viaduct. Although the metal part of the bridge has changed many times, the stone pillars survived two world wars and one civil war and have been serving for more than 150 years.
📌The first station built on the territory of modern Ukraine was Lviv. Its construction was completed in 1861, but now we see a later version of it, erected in 1904, repeatedly restored after the Polish-Ukrainian War, the First and Second World War.
📌 The new concept of compartment cars assumes a two-story compartment layout, where passengers literally sit on each other's heads. The idea was presented by the International Business Cooperation company from Dnipro last year. A year later, the concept of a sleep box was never implemented; there's only a full-scale project of such a modernized car from the inside.
📌The longest train route in Ukraine lasts 32 hours, its length is 1664 kilometers. The train runs from Uzhgorod to Lysychansk; it's one of the longest routes that Ukrzaliznytsia has ever offered, connecting 10 regions of Ukraine from west to east. By car, this distance can be covered a little faster, in 20 hours, if you go without stopping.
And look what the first inclusive electric train in Ukraine looks like.
