Millions flee from Russian invasion by train
European railways have played a key role helping refugees escape the war in Ukraine.
“Eurostar is offering free travel to London for any refugees with permission to travel to the UK, and from March 20 British operators offered free travel to newly arrived Ukrainians”
THE invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which began on February 24, has led to millions of civilians fleeing bombarded cities in the east and centre of the country for the west. More than three million had crossed into neighbouring European countries by midMarch – the vast majority being women and children, as most men aged 18-60 cannot leave – and the first refugees crossed the border into Poland by train on February 24/25.
The railway system in Ukraine, which is run by the national rail company Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ), has become a target in the ongoing war. Russian missiles have been reported hitting railway stations in the capital city Kyiv, with artillery shelling hitting railway lines and stations in other cities such as Kharkiv, even as they are being used to evacuate people.
The boss of UZ described in an interview with the BBC how he and his team operate a different timetable daily to reflect where people need to be moved from.
UZ announced very early in the conflict that all rail lines that linked Ukraine to Russia had been blown up by the Ukrainian military to prevent them being used by the invading army. In the following four weeks, trains were attacked and several railway staff have been killed. Railway workshops have been making anti-tank ‘hedgehog’ three dimensional road blocks using scrap rails and, by mid-March, had produced over a thousand for use by the Ukrainian Army.
Packed trains heading west
UZ has been operating special trains heading west from Kyiv and other cities such as Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhya and Kryvyi Rih in the east, plus Odesa in the south of the country. Many of these trains, often carrying more than 100,000 people a day in total, have been destined for the western city of Lviv, around 75km from the Polish border and relatively untouched by Russian attacks as of late March.
From western Ukraine, millions have then moved west by train to neighbouring European countries, with by far the largest number going to Poland. Crossborder rail routes, which until February were only used by a handful of passenger or freight trains, have suddenly become the busiest international railways in Europe.
Polish border stations in Przemyśl, Chełm, Dorohusk and Hrubieszów have seen thousands pass through each day. Many are heading to Warsaw or Krakow, from where special trains running further west have been increasingly provided since the first week of the war, as Poland could not accommodate millions of new inhabitants overnight.
To help people move on from the border area, multiple rail operators – led in Poland by national company PKP Intercity, but working with private passenger operators – quickly started operating extra trains.
One long-closed line over the border between Ukraine and Poland was reopened and made fit for use in a matter of days.
Other cross-border lines normally only used for freight, including the 1520mm gauge LHS line linking Katowice with the Ukrainian border have seen passenger trains introduced for the first time in two decades, again within days to help move people west.
In early March, private Czechbased passenger company Regiojet began running daily trains to Prague from Przemyśl, where tens of thousands of people are arriving daily from Ukraine. On the way east from Prague to Przemyśl, the otherwise empty trains also conveyed freight wagons full of supplies for people at the border or still in Ukraine, which had been collected or donated by people and companies in the Czech Republic thanks to Czech charity ‘People in Need’.
Wider connections
PKP Intercity and German national operator DB quickly strengthened existing services between the two countries, and from March 5 began running direct trains from Przemyśl to the German border station at Frankfurt an der Oder, from where a connection to Berlin was provided. Germany-based pan-European rolling stock movement specialist RailAdventure organised a 16-coach special train at its own expense over the weekend of March 13/14 from the Poland/Ukraine border station of Dorohusk, taking about 1500 refugees to Munich. As the war continued, more Ukrainian refugees arrived at the borders with other neighbouring countries, including Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. Whilst some remained in the first country they arrived in, many continued west using the now very busy service trains. Main stations in cities such as Vienna, Berlin and Munich rapidly set up reception areas for new arrivals, with local authorities and volunteers helping people find food, shelter and onward connections. By mid-March, the German government had set up a series of reception centres in cities away from Berlin, often in exhibition centres such as the huge Hannover Messe, and the German government contracted open access operator RDC Deutschland to run 11-coach trains daily from Frankfurt an der
Oder to Hannover, each carrying around 660 people (assisted by volunteers from the German Red Cross) directly to the temporary centre from March 10.
Free travel for anyone with a Ukrainian passport or ID card has been offered by most rail companies in Europe since lateFebruary. Eurostar is offering free travel to London for any refugees with permission to travel to the UK, and from March 20 British operators offered free travel to newly arrived Ukrainians.
Consequences
The reaction of much of the world to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been one of condemnation, and largescale economic sanctions have been imposed on the country and its financial system. The rail system in Russia and neighbouring Belarus was used extensively for the build-up of military forces, with some units travelling thousands of miles from eastern Russia by rail. Russian State rail company RZD now finds itself under financial sanctions from the US and European governments; all transactions with British firms and citizens were banned in late March by the British government. RZD quickly lost large amounts of the lucrative rail freight container traffic on the China to Europe route, which previously carried more than 100 trains a month, as shippers in China or customers in Europe switched to routes that avoid Russia. The wider global rail industry voted to suspend both Russia and Belarus from the International Union of Railways UN organisation (UIC), which in the recent past was led by RZD. The rail supply industry has so far not followed the aviation industry’s example, where Boeing and Airbus have completely withdrawn maintenance and supply contracts from Russia. All of the large European rail manufacturers have activity there: for example, Siemens built and maintains Russia’s high speed rail fleet plus manufactures EMUs and locos with Russian firm Sinara; Alstom owns 20% of the largest Russian train building company Transmashholding; and Stadler has supplied EMUs to Russia, Belarus and Ukraine from its factory located near Belarus’s capital city Minsk.