Ukrainian Railways are deploying every available piece of equipment across the network under wartime pressure, Novinky reported.
Passengers traveling from Poland to Ukraine through Przemyśl transfer to nine-car Hyundai Rotem HRCS2 units purchased during the football World Cup. These trains run only on key routes where their higher speed is required and sleeper cars are not needed.
Novinky reported that another train bound for Dnipro waited on an adjacent track in Przemyśl, featuring sleeper cars with distinctive pressed-metal panels on their sides and high undercarriages requiring passengers to climb up from the raised platform.
An eight-axle Skoda ČS8 electric locomotive from the 1980s hauled that international service. Similar vintage locomotives frequently switch ends at the Lviv station to prepare for return journeys.
Single-unit electric locomotives are no longer visible at Lviv, and abandoned engines no longer line the tracks. Heavy Czechoslovak-built ČME3 shunting locomotives now haul regional expresses, utilizing their 90-kilometer-per-hour top speed.
The strain on the network is visible in Ivano-Frankivsk, where non-electrified routes rely on mismatched compositions. A regional service between Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Lviv uses cars from elderly EPL-2T suburban electric units paired with a modernized TE 70 locomotive.
Novinky reported that these compositions top out at 60 to 70 kilometers per hour, with track joints transmitting significantly more vibration than lighter railcars. Freight locomotives like the M62, built in Luhansk with two-stroke diesel engines, also handle passenger runs between Ivano-Frankivsk and Kolomyia.
Most trains continue to operate largely on schedule despite the ongoing conflict. Services arriving from the eastern regions frequently encounter delays of one to two hours when infrastructure or surrounding buildings become targets of attacks.
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