The Ukrainian Agri Council together with other participants of the Ukrainian Agrarian Forum (VAF) appealed to the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki with a request to lay a broad-gauge railway track (with a gauge of 1,520 mm) across its territory which will connect the Ukrainian and Lithuanian railway networks as well as the port of Gdansk.

Thanks to the Poland’s authorities, it has already been possible to achieve significant progress in increasing the Ukrainian export and ensuring strategically important imports through the western borders of Ukraine. At the same time, there is potential to significantly diversify logistics chains and increase export capacity.

The most bottlenecks of logistics routes through Polish ports are the limited capacity of the ports themselves, the dominance of the road infrastructure over the railway infrastructure, the need to overload wagons or rearrange bogies due to different gauge and, accordingly, the lack of such capacities, as well as European-style wagons and locomotives, especially for transporting grain cargo.

One of the largest and closest European ports to Ukraine is the port of Klaipėda (Lithuania), which has significant free transshipment capacity and through which the Republic of Poland also imports thermal coal. But due to the wide gauge in the Baltic countries - 1520 mm, as well as in Ukraine, and the corresponding difficulties with the transition to the European gauge to connect with the Republic of Poland, it turns out to be impossible to realize the export-import potential of the Klaipeda port.

The use of vehicles or containers as an alternative is not sufficiently adapted for transporting bulk cargo (coal, ore, grain, metal) over long distances and increases their cost to an uncompetitive level. In addition, in the case of the improving the container terminals, the capacity of the railway line will be limited by their capacities, which will again prevent the full use of its potential.

“In our opinion, the laying of a railway line with a gauge of 1,520 mm across the territory of Poland, which will connect the Ukrainian and Lithuanian railway networks, as well as connect the port of Gdansk to them for the transportation of goods and passengers, will solve the above-mentioned problems.This will provide significant positive financial and economic effects for both the Republic of Poland and Ukraine, not only through facilitating the export-import, but also through economic cooperation of the Republic of Poland, the Baltic countries and Ukraine," the appeal reads.

This project can be implemented through the reconstruction of the existing railway network and the construction of a connecting track or the construction of a separate railway sector, depending on the conclusions of expert organizations, which requires appropriate funding.