Rail traffic between Izium and Kharkiv resumed, seven months later
Despite the bombardments that have hit Ukraine all day, passenger rail transport has resumed between Izium, a city in the east recently reconquered by Ukrainian forces, and Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, in the north -East.
In a difficult context, railway workers managed the feat of restoring this rail link after a seven-month interruption imposed by the Russian offensive.
“The trains will run twice a day, every day”assured Andrei Gadiatsky, the director of the railways of Izium, standing in the rain in front of the barricaded windows of the partially burned station.
For some inhabitants of this region at the heart of the fighting on the eastern front, it is the way to finally be able to access basic necessities. “It will allow them to go to Kharkiv, to use their bank cards”underlined Mr. Gadiatsky.
There is no electricity to power the locomotives that once served the eastern Ukraine network, and Russian missiles still regularly hit Kharkiv’s marshalling yards. But a Ukrainian DPKr-3 diesel train that once shuttled between kyiv and the international airport of the Ukrainian capital, that of Boryspil, has been put back into service… 600 kilometers further east.
The route includes stops in former front line towns like Savyntsi, Tsyganska and Balakliia.
A passenger, Maria Tymofienko, has not been to Balakliya since the start of the war. “I am 73 years old and I always have to cycle because the buses do not run”she told AFP, aboard the train that winds through wooded hills under a gray sky.
She hopes that Balakliia, where she has family, will give her respite from Izioum, now in ruins.
“Yesterday, my granddaughter called me and said: ‘Grandmother, I checked on the internet and the train for Balakliia will resume service tomorrow’. And I said, ‘Okay, okay, I’ll take it'”.
“I have no hope. If it’s like Izioum, I don’t know. Here they broke into my apartment, my garage. They stole everything. They ate all my canned food. They took all the tools”she said. “So many people died under the rubble. Apartments were destroyed, schools. It was terrifying”she continued.