Ukrzaliznytsia's trains have been packed. Lviv's station normally handles 5,000-6,000 people a day, but in recent days it's been as much as 10 times that. Where possible, the trains return back east, toward Kyiv and the rest of the country, carrying aid. "We have trains going to Poland. It would be a waste of resources to bring them back empty," [head of passenger operations Oleksandr Pertsovskyi] said. "Load them up."The Russians get the strategic value of railroads.
Ukraine's rail network is extensive, and Pertsoivskyi says they've been able to cram as many as 6,000 travelers onto a single train. They have also suspended regular ticketing. He described some of their difficulties: an unexploded bomb fell next to tracks. He said, "It's my decision to let a train move people or not. We had to close that sector; luckily in this case we could re-route. It might be a difficult decision."People more skilled in the operational arts than I suggest that the Ukrainian military are working to protect the major junctions along the railroad. That's helpful to the train crews, although railroaders are no slouches when it comes to fixing the tracks. "Many years ago, Army Air Force General [James] Van Fleet wrote an article in Trains explaining the difficulties of knocking out a railroad with the biggest air armada in the world. Railroad maintenance crews have a lot of practice clearing derailments and restoring tracks clearly." Sometimes you hang on to what might look like valuable scrap metal because it's more valuable restoring a bridge, or perhaps installing a temporary bridge.
Also, he said, "Last night I got a call from an intercity train" – the fastest and most reliable way to get from Kyiv and Lviv – "facing damaged tracks. Fortunately, resolved."
As part of his report, Mr Chin gets a cab ride.
Sitting next to the driver at the front of the train, [railroad CEO Oleksandr] Kamyshin consulted with various department heads as the train hurtled through the countryside at 100 miles an hour, at times – our journey punctuated by the sound of loud horns, cackling radio traffic, and the sights of dispatch and station personnel with their different colored batons at regular intervals. It was a reminder that Ukraine combines both elements of the 21st century cosmopolitan internationalism that it wants to join, growing a burgeoning tech sector and empowering these young executives with their foreign educations and claims to clean up corruption, with an older, almost nostalgia-tinged Europe of telegraph wires, semaphore signals, and vanished empires.I bet that speedometer is registering a more sedate 100 km/h. Those code lines, semaphore signals, and station agents are what can keep the trains rolling when senior management are on a business car and if somebody hacks into the computer dispatching system.
The article also includes what might be propaganda.
Ukrzalinytsia also made available refrigerator cars for the Ukrainian Army to transport the bodies of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine back to Russia, but thus far, they haven't received a response from the Russian side. "They don't care," Kamyshin said, "tomorrow I'll ask volunteers to help our army with loading. Then we will carry these refrigerated cars to Russia."It's not clear from elsewhere in the article or from other reading I have done whether any connections to Russian or Belarus metals are still operable. The Russians are notorious for concealing their military losses, going so far as to note that soldiers have "fallen in service to the country," which could mean either as a participant in an operation or in a training accident or when a submarine fails.
I wonder if the General Notice posted in the engine houses and yard offices has been amended to read
"Subject to the military situation, safety is of the first importance in the discharge of duty."
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