Ukraine and CEF to invest millions to develop standard gauge network

Ukraine will invest 85.9 million euros to further develop its railway network in standard gauge (1435 mm). The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) will cover half the investments with 42.9 million euros. The initiative concerns projects for railway lines leading into Ukraine’s EU neighbouring countries.
The allocation of dozens of millions of euros from CEF to Ukraine was announced last week, together with various other projects throughout Europe. Ukrainian Railways (UZ) has now specified that it will match the investments and which projects will be funded via this mechanism.

Standard gauge to the western borders

One of the cities in the spotlight for the investments will be Lviv, in the west of Ukraine. For example, the projects include designing the implementation of the standard gauge along the railway going to Chop, which leads to Hungary and Slovakia, and the one going through the Romanian border via Vadul-Siret. Moreover, some of the funds will be deployed to develop a strategy to implement the 1435 mm gauge at the Lviv railway hub.

Two more projects involve Uzhhorod, a city in western Ukraine near the border with Slovakia. The first one entails the electrification of the existing standard gauge line to Chop, along the Ukrainian southwestern border. The second one is the design for the construction of an electrified 1435 mm rail line crossing between Uzhhorod and Maťovské Vojkovce in Slovakia.

Finally, the rest of the funds will be used to assess TSI compliance of all these projects and two more lines, already in standard gauge, leading into Poland. These lines are the Kovel-Yahodyn and Lviv-Medyka. “Ukraine continues its European integration path and has systemic support from the EU. Thus, for the second year in a row, CEF is allocating funds for the implementation of strategic infrastructure projects”, said the chairman of the board UZ Yevhen Lyashchenko.