European Railroad Discussion > Russia Cancels All Passenger Trains To Ukraine

Link here:

http://uatoday.tv/news/russia-cancels-trains-to-ukraine-396285.html

Repportedly will end on December 14th and last for one year.

Oh no, they have not taken care of their profitability! Interesting that this list also includes Kazachstan, considered once as number one friend of Russia on rails. Why would they have wished to develop something that clearly seemed unprofitable?

This list is also missing the now also cancelled connection to Estonian capital Tallinn, unless the state of Estonia is willing to subsidize this connection.

Finnish connections will continue as today. They are highly profitable for the St Petersburg - Helsinki Karelian Trains link (4 high speed connections per day) and above zero for Moscow - Helsinki inightly connection (Siemens Viaggio coaches pulled by mostly EP30 ellocos).

Pictures below from Baltijaam, Tallinn, Estonia just one year ago.

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I can't get the link to work but presumably this is Mr Putin throwing his weight around, attempting to destabilise his neighbours.

I think there must be more to it as some on the list seem to be friends. If we test the economical factors and political factors combined, would the list make sense then? I'm looking at the volumes alone from here, and so it is easy to understand why Helsinki connection got new everything and Tallinn lost everything.

Stas, you live near Finnish main track, could you share some of your pictures of the new rolling stock?

Here is also something to add to subject: a passenger service making its way through Lithuania passing Jure on its way to Russia. Since this service obviously is from Kaliningrad (before WW2 part of Germany? now part of Russia), I don't think it is on the discontinuation list despite its old looking rolling stock.

On the point are LG (Lithuanian railways) newly colored Tep70 #332 and M62K #1131.

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The article states that services to Moldova will continue as they are profitable. Not surprised by that as there are three trains a day between Moscow and Chisinau, Moldova and all average 15 - 20 cars. Also they pass through Ukraine making several stops there including Kiev.

The train between Moscow and Minsk is most interesting. 2nd and 3rd class only, and comes with KGB agents. I rode one of the trains with my YPT group on Nov 12 and a guy in a leather coat ( we were in 3rd which is an open sleeping car) comes into our area asked a few questions, places a recorder in some blankets, asks more questions when he learns that we have all been to North Korea, some to Iran, some to Chechnya and a few other choice spots, walks away for awhile. Eventually he returns to retrieve his whatever it is, I guess he decided we were just your garden variety western drunks on a slumming tour through the ex-Soviet Union and associated states. Frankly if that sort of trip interests you there's now where better to practice your art.

As a few of you may know, my girl friend is Ukrainian and lives in Kiev. Thus we took the overnight "Ukrainia" in Summer 2013 to Moscow and back. (photo is the
"Ukrainia" ready to depart Kievsky Station in Moscow). We found the train to be packed (it was tourist season) with a rake of 20 or more sleeping cars. All reasonably clean, on decent track, and on time. Unlike a previous trip in 2004, customs was done at the Kiev Station and Russian agents boarded the train just outside Moscow. A very convenient and inexpensive way to travel...even for a first class (two bed) sleeper. But I don't doubt that now what the Russians are saying about profitability is true. I don't think there are too many Ukrainians that would want to visit Russia unless out of necessity given what Russia has done to their sovereign country. My friend Yana now truly hates the Russian government (but not necessarily its people) and would never consider a trip there as long as Putin is in power. While tourism certainly didn't account for all of the trains fares, overnight train travel in Eastern Europe does make up a good percentage of the travel market with frequent overnight departures. That said, I'm sure Mr. Putin is using any excuse he can to make it more difficult for Ukrainians to visit their love ones in Russia. So glad I got to visit Russia while we had the chance. We would never go back there now and support Russian aggression with our vacation dollars!

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I believe there is some information being lost in translation here. As reported by the Man in Seat 61:

"Fortunately, it now seems some trains will remain between Moscow & all these countries. Remaining Kiev-Moscow trains will use Ukrainian cars."

My guess is that it was decided to cancel some trains, and somehow that got misinterpreted to mean all trains. "All trains" wouldn't make sense anyway, as several of these countries have to be traversed to continue serving other destinations, such as Uzbekistan and Moldova.

Thank you for the interesting Chs7 electric loco looks!

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> "Ukrainia" ready to depart Kievsky Station in
> Moscow). We found the train to be packed (it was
> tourist season) with a rake of 20 or more sleeping
> cars. All reasonably clean, on decent track, and
> on time.

Are these some of the cars Pennengineer pointed out are being used now? Ore are these Russian too?

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The first light blue on white car looks like it might have that silly thing Ukraine uses as an emblem and the other the large scrip is hard to translate but it's sort of looks like MEGAPRAYS ? Possibly some sort of spinning off of the only things left of value in Ukraine to private operators as part of the plan to "bust out" what's left of value in the place.

Thanks! These bluish unusual looking coaches, for Russia, were found in St Petersburg. At the time, several years before the current crises, Ukraine seemed to be one of the most popular destinations for extreme long passenger services. It looked like the journey might have been quite long, judging from the gear passengers were carrying with them.

GettingShort Wrote:
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> The first light blue on white car looks like it
> might have that silly thing Ukraine uses as an
> emblem and the other the large scrip is hard to
> translate but it's sort of looks like MEGAPRAYS ?
> Possibly some sort of spinning off of the only
> things left of value in Ukraine to private
> operators as part of the plan to "bust out" what's
> left of value in the place.

Here is another similar coach, but I'm unable to recognize the eagle sign on it.

The third one has RzD texts where the eagle is located at the other. If you need to take a look at a bigger pictures with more details, please see 4rail.net Russian gallery: http://www.4rail.net/reference_russia_gallery1.php

And sorry, I really should take time to arrange that in order once more, too many pictures in no special order now...

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Guys,

I don't even know where to start my comments......

[To self: OK, Eugene, deep breath.....here we go....]

1) Yes, RZD has announced cancellation of a number of trains going to/through other countries of the CIS, some of them have been on the schedules for decades. Reasons for this are probably more economic than anything else (and is not limited to those trains.....RZD, as well as to a lesser extent UZ, have been a source of irritation to domestic travelers in Russia and Ukraine in recent years with various schedule restructurings/reorganizations).

Now, the background for the economic reasons is indeed political. I don't know about vs other countries in question, but vs Ukraine it certainly has to do with the current conflict between the two countries. Russia-Ukraine traffic has collapsed, both due to the more aggressive Ukrainian border guards (for obvious reasons) and public attitudes - Russians not wanting to visit due to propaganda-derived phobias about "poor treatment of Russian speakers", and Ukrainians not wanting to visit the country that they view as an aggressor. This includes family travel - there are a lot of instances of family members stopping communication with each other over the course of the previous year (most of the time it's initiated by the Ukrainian side as they get tired of hearing about how they are supposedly "persecuted for speaking Russian" and that "Russia is only trying to help").

Earlier this year, besides the Moscow-Donetsk and Moscow-Lugansk trains (cancelled initially due to combat-caused infrastructure damage, with the Donetsk train subsequently reinstated to Konstatinovka on the Ukrainian side of the line), Kiev-Moscow Trains 5/6 "Kiev" were withdrawn after the collapse of demand caused the consists of most trains in the corridor to shrink from 12-20 cars to 7-8.

The current news is regarding four different trains, and reports seem to indicate that the situation will be re-evaluated next year: Moscow-Sofia 59/60 "Bulgaria-Express", Moscow-Budapest 15/16 "Tissa", Moscow-Odessa 33/34, and Moscow-Kiev 1/2 "Capital Express". The first two are being withdrawn in their entirety as a) they relied on "local" Russia-Ukraine traffic for their bottom line, and b) Russians are very hesitant to travel through Ukraine due to reasons outlined above. Their withdrawal means that there is no through trains/cars from Russia to the Balkans for the first time since, probably, WWII. I believe that the current plan is to introduce a daytime Lvov-Budapest train to restore some of the service provided by Tissa, with connections to Kiev....whether or not this means that eventually there will be a UZ-formed Kiev-Budapest train, I don't know.

(After I typed up the above, I checked UZ's site, and it shows daily through Kiev-Budapest and Kiev-Bratislava cars effective Dec 14th....soo, we shall see)

Moscow-Odessa is being yanked due to the aforementioned traffic-collapse. The situation with the "Capital Express" is a bit different. Currently, this service is provided daily with two consists - one Ukrainian, one Russian. RZD is withdrawing their consist, meaning the train will be entirely under UZ. Whether this means a train going from daily to every other day, I'm not sure.

2) In the pictures above, the only Ukrainian cars are in the picture posted by andersonb109. The rest are RZD, with some belonging to private operators in the Moscow-St Petersburg corridor ("Megapolis" car might be from one of those operators).

3) John, yes, that is a ChS7 on there. Clearly says so right on the front!!

4) Nothing wrong with current symbol used by the UZ. How is it worse than many others??

5) Bruce, the name of the train is "Ukraina", not "Ukrainia". It was the premier train on the route for decades until 2005/06 when the "Capital Express" was introduced (and given #'s 1/2, with "Ukraina" renumbered to 3/4.)

Anything else, please ask......but do try to avoid going on mental flights of fancy......



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/14 08:31 by chs7-321.

It does, I was merely happy to see another Czech built loco. Besides using Cyrillics Chs (= yC) might be a bit hard to understand...

chs7-321 Wrote:
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> 3) John, yes, that is a ChS7 on there. Clearly
> says so right on the front!!

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Thanks chs7-321 for the explanation.
This is the Bulgaria Express in Sofia 24 Nov. There were through cars from Moscow (3 and restaurant car) Kiev (1) and Lvov (1). At Bucharest several 2nd class open coaches were added as the trough cars are only for international travel. Happily a brief conversation with the Russian crew and a small "fee" and our group found ourselves in possession of a nearly empty 2nd class RZD sleeper.

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Sadly there were few passenger on this train,

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