In western Ukraine, about 1,100 railcars with grain are stuck near the main rail border crossing with Poland in the village of Izov. This is only part of the 24,190 railcars with various export goods, including vegetable oil, iron ore, metals, chemicals and coal, that were waiting to cross the western Ukrainian border as of Tuesday, March 5, according to state-run Ukrzaliznytsia.
ProAgro Group reports this, citing a Reuters publication.
Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, exported 98 percent of its grain through the Black Sea before the war. Only part of the exports were transported by rail, where transportation costs were higher.
Now that all seaports are blocked, the country is trying to export its grain and other goods by land, but logistical problems and bureaucracy have hampered the effort, industry officials and commodity traders say
One of the problems on the railroad is the different track widths used in Ukraine and neighboring countries such as Poland. The Ukrainian railroad network is about 1.5 meters wide, about 10 centimeters wider than in most European countries. Railroad workers have to lift cars with a jack and manually change the chassis to Polish tracks, said Valery Tkachov, deputy director of the commercial department of Ukrzaliznytsia.
In addition, it is possible to unload grain from the Ukrainian cars and pour it into the Polish carriages, but this process takes up to half an hour per car.
Tkachev said that now up to 500 railcars a day cross the border near Izov. “Ukrzaliznytsia” is working to increase the throughput capacity to 1,100 railcars of grain per day.
