The Klaipeda railway will be part of the new Baltic Sea – Black Sea – Aegean Sea TEN-T corridor. “The inclusion of the European-gauge railway line to Klaipėda in the new TEN-T regulation is a solid achievement of and for our country, and the entire Baltic region that will help speed up the development of infrastructure that is important for the whole of Europe,” said deputy transport minister Loreta Maskaliovienė.

Besides the Klaipeda railway, the TEN-T network also includes key international road and rail links in Lithuania, such as Rail Baltica, the Via Baltica and Vilnius-Klaipėda motorways, the Kaunas intermodal terminal, the port of Klaipėda, and the airports of Vilnius, Kaunas, and Palanga.

Also read:

• Costly Rail Baltica to cut ambitions and seek funding elsewhere
• Another Ukraine-Lithuania rail freight connection is in the works
• New TEN-T: These are the new guidelines for gauge migration

This announcement is not the first example of cooperation between Lithuania and Ukraine in the context of rail freight. At the end of 2023, UZ and LTG Cargo set up a container service linking Kyiv to Kaunas to offer an alternative to the road blockades on the Ukraine-Poland border. Moreover, the two companies cooperated with Ukrainian logistics company Global Ocean Link to start transporting semi-trailers on the rail via the same route.

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• New TEN-T: These are the new guidelines for gauge migration
• PKP Cargo confirms Ukraine as target for expansion
• New TEN-T: Regulation puts military mobility in the spotlight

Poland could allow investments via a simplified procedure, which it has used in the past for other infrastructure projects. Earlier, the governments of Poland and Ukraine came to a preliminary agreement on the issue.

Different gauges

The envisioned broad gauge line is supposed to connect Ukraine with the Polish port of Gdańsk and the Klaipėda port in Lithuania. Poland uses standard European gauge, whereas neighbouring Ukraine and Lithuania are on the broad gauge.

While Poland and Ukraine are also building a standard gauge connection, the bulk of European grain wagons are Ukrainian and work on broad gauge infrastructure. Replacing all those wagons would be a costly affair. For that reason, a new rail line could be a more financially viable option.

Moreover, cargo between Poland and Ukraine needs to be transferred from one gauge to another at the border. This takes time and reduces competitiveness. Consequently, Ukrainian farmers appealed to Poland for the broad gauge line in October 2022.

Profitable investment

If the countries build the broad gauge line, Ukrainian companies can guarantee an “appropriate scale” of grain transportation for the next decade. “Poland will be able to build plants for processing Ukrainian grain on its coast and export finished products, which will help it earn more,” the Ukrainian minister said.

According to the Ukrainian minister, there are Ukrainian investors ready to finance the project. However, the minister did not specify who these investors are.

RailFreight Summit 2024

Are you interested in learning more about rail freight and infrastructure updates between Ukraine and Poland? Then the RailFreight Summit 2024, taking place between 15 and 17 April in Warsaw, Poland, is the perfect occasion to connect with industry professionals and dive deeper into the topic.

This year’s edition of the RailFreight Summit turns the spotlight on trending issues like the TEN-T expansion, connections with Ukraine, significant projects like Rail Baltica and their potential for the creation of more efficient logistics corridors, Poland’s role as a logistics node and a performance assessment of intra-European and Eurasian services.

You can check the event’s programme here and secure your participation ticket here. Additionally, do not miss the chance to explore the networking and site tour possibilities that could provide excellent opportunities for boosting your business in Poland and the CEE region.

Also read:

• Ukrainian iron ore exports through Polish border crossing up by 43%
• EU Commission approves 180 million euros for Polish intermodal transport
• Polish operator bills farmers blocking its tracks: 1,3 million PLN for a day

The company already uses a rail service offered by LTG Cargo between Duisburg and Lithuanian Kaunas, which the company calls a ‘good alternative to road transport’. However, Samskip laments the fact that there is no operator that provides a financially interesting inland rail connection from Klaipeda as an alternative to other modalities.

Lack of commercial operators

At the moment, an intermodal rail connection from Klaipeda port is not always financially interesting, says Samskip. The company points to the lack of commercial operators as the culprit. “There is an insufficient number of commercially-minded operators in the region,” the Dutch logistics company says. Consequently, rail connectivity to Baltic ports is lacking, which provides an obstacle to intermodality.

Commercially minded operators are needed because the currently present state-owned operators do not provide interesting alternatives to different modalities. State-owned operators are widely considered to operate inefficiently. For example, state-owned companies Fret SNCF and DB Cargo have both been subject to EU reprisals over excessive state support following bad financial performance.

Rail Baltica

Rail Baltica may provide an impetus to improvement in the Baltics, according to Samskip. The EU-sponsored rail project aims to connect the three Baltic states with the rest of Europe on the standard European gauge TEN-T network. Currently, the existing Baltic railway infrastructure is oriented towards Russia, and the Baltic networks are badly interconnected because they were built during Russia’s rule in the area.

Rail Baltica would provide improved inter-Baltic connectivity and a high-speed line to the rest of Europe. ‘It could attract commercial operators,’ says Samskip. ‘That would be a very positive development for rail. Rail Baltica is planned to go through Kaunas, and a commercially viable route could then be extended towards the port of Klaipeda.’

Also read:

• LTG Cargo launches first cross-Baltic service
• Rail Baltica Estonia signs new contracts, optimistic about progress
• Estonian Railways’ losses expected to worsen in the coming years

Moreover, Skuodis emphasized that the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) provides an opportunity to develop a rail corridor between the Baltic states and Ukraine. The new TEN-T network already provides for a corridor link to Ukraine via the Dorohusk-Yagodin border crossing. TEN-T also includes a railway to the Lithuanian port of Klaipėda, which could then be used to provide a reliable export route for Ukrainian grain.

Also read:

• Ukrainian Railways to start building variable gauge grain hoppers
• Lithuania-Ukraine link becomes regular, reefer containers high in demand
• Lithuania-Ukraine semi-trailers by rail are much faster than by road

LTG Cargo will take care of transport on the section for the port of Klaipeda to the Kaunas Intermodal Terminal, where its Polish branch, LTG Cargo Polska, will pick the cargo up. The ride then continues through Poland until the Medyka-Mostyska border crossing, where the goods are moved into broad UZ’s broad gauge rolling stock and taken to the Lisky terminal in Kyiv. From here, the semi-trailers will reach their destinations by road.

Not UZ’s first tests with semi-trailer

This is not the first initative for UZ concerning semi-trailers. The company is collaborating with Austrian Rail Cargo Group for this type of service along the Kyiv-Lviv-Budapest-Vienna axis. This project, was announced in May, and successfully tested in October, with expectations of going live before the end of the year. The wagons for both these projects are provided by German rolling stock trader VTG.

Lithuania-Ukraine cooperation

When it comes to collaboration between Ukraine and Lithuania, it does not stop with this new initiative. Despite there is nothing yet concrete, UZ confirmed that it is considering using this route to import grain crops. Lithuania has been proposed as a candidate to import grain from Kyiv by parties from both countries since the summer. In July, Lithuanian Ministers sent a joint letter to the EU Commission requesting assistance in establishing a rail export corridor via the Baltic countries. In August, the president of the Ukrainian Logistics Alliance, Edvins Berzins underlined the potential of the Baltic route for the country’s grain exports. Moreover, yesterday LTG Cargo announced the expansion of its grain fleet with 500 new wagons.

Also read:

• Ukrainian grain volumes moved by rail are slowly increasing again
• Ukrainian Railways purchased 115 standard gauge tank wagons
• First Ukrainian freight train reaches Latvia after a year-and-a-half hiatus