Infrastructure minister says Ukrzaliznytsia must focus solely on transportation services

"Ukrzaliznytsia will never be able to make quality locomotives on its own. It will never make high-quality rail cars. When they talk about their passenger trains, I’m sorry, it's past century technology: railway cars from the 1950s and locomotives from 1960s-1970s," he told Ukrainian TV Channel 5 on Wednesday, Dec 10, as reported by Ukrainska Pravda.

According to Omelyan, this technology lag causes frequent delays.

Read alsoGE Transportation to deliver 30 locomotives to Ukrzaliznytsia in Sep 2018"This is absurd when in the 21st century the maximum speed of freight rail traffic is 40 kmh, while passenger trains go only up to 100 kmh at best,” said Omelyan, adding that Ukrzaliznytsia should make profit only in transportation services while forgetting about the rest.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Kremenchuk-based PJSC Kryukovsky Railway Car Building Works (KRCBW), Poltava region, in 2017 increased the output of passenger rail cars by 5.5 times, to 50 units.