The development of China – Europe traffic and the necessary infrastructure is constantly ongoing. The Middle Corridor, an alternative to traffic through Russia, is the centrepiece of these efforts. But while an end to the war seems to be inching closer, a Ukrainian project sees an entirely new corridor as a much better choice: The Green Corridor.
This article is the first out of a series of three about rail infrastructure in western Ukraine. The second article will cover TEN-T and rail infrastructure. The last article will cover sorting hubs, stations and gauge change hubs.
The idea for the Green Corridor arose in 2016, when Boris Ganaylyuk talked to his friends in urban development about the rail situation around Lviv, in western Ukraine. The urban planner friends, Rostyslav Bilynskyy and Yuri Stolyarov, were looking to reduce the noise disturbances caused by rail freight traffic and introduce urban passenger transportation.
They started researching, much aided by Bilynskyy’s expertise as the head of Lviv’s Institute of Spatial Development. However, Ganaylyuk explains, the railway infrastructure around Lviv has historically been focused on long-distance freight and passenger transportation: It was too important for business, complicating the urban design ambitions.
These studies became the basis for Lemberger Linien, a special project company that is now promoting the Green Corridor and a new vision for Lviv’s rail altogether. Ganaylyuk took on the position of CEO.
Slightly offended by RailFreight.com map
They found the best solution to be a freight bypass around Lviv. But then, Ganaylyuk says, the question arose: “How do we attract more traffic to make it financially viable?”
“At some point, we saw a map of your publication, RailFreight.com, with the Northern Corridor in blue and the Middle Corridor in yellow as routes for China – Europe traffic. Frankly, we got a little bit offended”, Ganaylyuk says jokingly. “We then set out to promote an alternative – and in our opinion better – route, through Lviv. Combining the blue and yellow lines on the RailFreight.com map, we added the ‘Green Corridor’ to it, which also lines up nicely with sustainability goals.”
Rather than transiting Belarus in the north or the Caucasus in the south, trains on the Green Corridor would transit southern Russia, enter Ukraine, and be loaded onto the European standard gauge network in Lviv. Whereas there are some clear issues with the route (the still ongoing war precludes rail freight traffic across their borders), the Lemberger Linien CEO sees enough advantages to out-compete both the Northern and Middle corridors.
Better than Brest
For one, Lviv is supposedly a better place than Belarusian Brest to collect Chinese trains headed for Europe. The Ukrainian city has a better sorting hub, and there are multiple available directions into Europe: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. The same cannot be said for Brest, explains Ganaylyuk.
There are trains going to Europe from China on a daily basis, but not from each Chinese city. European customers can therefore be left waiting quite a while before a train departs from a Chinese city to a specific location in Europe. “Instead of sending a train from Wuhan to, say, Milan, we could send them to the hub in Lviv. There, it would be sorted together with other freight for Milan or Italy, and those trains would run much more regularly.”
An added benefit is that the roundtrips between European destinations and Lviv would make more efficient use of rolling stock. This is because they go more often over shorter distances and take freight back to Ukraine for further transportation eastwards.
Conflict is a barrier
Despite all these benefits, such a Green Corridor has never been in place. “This is partially because, when Silk Road traffic was starting, no one wanted to go through Ukraine due to the war in Donetsk and Luhansk from 2014. That is despite the problems at Malaszewicze”, the Lemberger Linien CEO explains.
Of course, the war in Ukraine needs to come to an end first. But even after the war the question remains if Ukraine and Russia will be ready to open their borders for rail freight traffic. “That is in the hands of China and India, if there is the political will to open this corridor”, says Ganaylyuk. If China wants it, then it could become a reality.
There is still work to be done
In terms of infrastructure, the Green Corridor has the advantage that the routes towards Ukraine from China are not as busy as the Northern corridor. The Volga area in Russia has the best infrastructure northwards, infrastructure towards Kazakhstan could use some improvement, according to Ganaylyuk. “It would be necessary to build double tracks and electrification there, but that is not too expensive compared to the revenue for transporters.”
And in Lviv, even if there is already a better sorting centre than in Belarus, it could also be improved: Lemberger Linien calls for the reconstruction of the sorting centre with an increase in the number of directions and capacity. It also wants to implement the already planned TEN-T standard gauge connections with Europe, which constitute four lines from Lviv to the main EU border crossings, for a total length of 400 – 500 kilometres. And, most importantly, it calls for the creation of transshipment facilities right within the sorting hub.
Lastly, there are political changes to be made. The corridor would benefit immensely if trains would no longer get stuck at border crossings, says Ganaylyuk. “For that, we are calling for an alliance of operators, rolling stock owners and the like to make custom-free border crossings possible.”