A new intermodal terminal has opened on the border between Poland and Ukraine. It is called Mostyska Container Terminal, located in Mostyska village (Lviv region, Ukraine). It is operated by Global Ocean Link (GOL), which is responsible for several rail freight services to various locations in Ukraine.

The terminal lies in close proximity to the railway border checkpoint Mostyska-II, near the international highway M11 at the border with Poland. According to GOL, it taps into all traffic flows between Ukraine and the EU. “The terminal diminishes a number of inconveniences while offering the most competitive prices”, it commented.

Poland-Ukraine route

The border point has seen an increase of rail freight traffic between Poland and Europe. From April 2020 a weekly train arrives here from Poland, with cargo headed to Ukrainian destinations as the west (Khmelnytskyi), central Ukraine (Kyiv, Vinnytsia) and the east (Dnipro, Kharkiv). From Mostyska, trains connect to Polish cities such as Gdańsk, Gdynia, Central Poland, Upper Silesia, Lower Silesia, Berlin and Brandenburg Region, Hamburg, Duisburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp.

“This project is a logical continuation of the launch of our high-speed container trains to Europe”, the company says. “With the current capabilities of the terminal, we can cover any multimodal logistics chain to and from the EU for any type of transportation.”

High-speed to Rotterdam

The high-speed container train GOL is referring to is the train from Nikel-Pobuzhsky in Ukraine to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. This train, launched on 23 January this year, takes the Mostyska route. From the border point it links directly to the Dutch port. The total transit time is 9 days.

“In the future, the total time for transportation may be reduced to 5-7 days, which can seriously compete with road transportation and become an alternative type of logistics in this direction”, GOL added. The company also plans to launch new container trains in the direction of Poland, Germany, Belgium and other destinations in the Netherlands.

Advantages of rail

According to Vladimir Huz, Associated Partner of GOL, rail freight has a lot to offer where the road has some serious limitations on this particular stretch. For one, there are a lot of queues at the Polish-Ukranian border. “It could take an additional 3-4 days to drive a truck across the border, doubling the transit time for road. On the other hand, there are no queues for the rail connection.”

Moreover, the number of truck journeys carried out depends on the number of permits granted by the respective governments, and this number is never meeting the actual demand. “The second half of each year, there is a serious problem with the availability of transit permissions for regular trucks. In this period, prices for truck delivery are rising 1,5-2 times. If train connections are used instead, these prices could be stabilised for a longer period of time and there is no need for permission control.”

Services of the terminal

The new terminal has the option to change track gauge, an important advantage. Moreover, it has two warehouses, open storage, eight ramps for auto-loading, a container depo of 400 TEUs, a direct transshipment option and a customs clearance area. The terminal is already open and operative.

Also read:

• Where trucks stop, trains continue on the Poland-Ukraine border
• ‘Ukraine cannot be on the sidelines of the New Silk Road’