CZECH private operator RegioJet is planning to serve Ukraine from early January 2024 with an overnight service from Prague to Chop via the Čierna nad Tisou border crossing in Slovakia.
The new service will use the 37km standard-gauge line that runs from the border to Chop and on to Mukachevo in Ukraine. Trains will leave Prague main station at 21.38 and arrive in Chop at 10.35, with the return service leaving Chop at 17.30 to arrive in Prague at 05.07.
The service to Chop will initially be operated with a three-coach train accommodating 140 passengers, with 80 in sleeping accommodation and 60 seated. Between Prague and Košice in Slovakia, the train will be conveyed by RegioJet’s daily Regiojet Praha - Košice - Humenné service.
As RegioJet has no licence to operate in Ukraine, the new service will be operated in conjunction with Ukrainian Railways (UZ), with RegioJet paying track access charges to UZ’s infrastructure management department. Connections with UZ domestic services are to be provided at Chop in the 2024 timetable that will come into force on December 10.
RegioJet is also planning to link Ukraine with other capital cities in central Europe by rail. Operated in conjunction with UZ, a service to Berlin would run via the border crossing at Przemyśl in Poland, but this would require further infrastructure investment and preferably the extension of 1435mm gauge as far as Lviv in Ukraine.
According to the Czech operator, substantial investment is required to accommodate longer trains and handle more passengers at Mostyska II station in Ukraine, doubling capacity at this border crossing which Regiojet sees as the principal gateway to Ukraine and its capital Kyiv.
Until then, the Berlin train will start next year change as an overnight service from Przemyśl to Hannover.
Providing its new services entirely on a commercial basis, RegioJet will not be the sole passenger operator on the 1435mm-gauge routes into Ukraine. Slovakian national operator ZSSK runs a twice-day service to Chop and Mukachevo, while there are up to eight pairs of trains a day operated by Hungarian State Railways (MÁV) from Záhony to Chop.
