BACKGROUND: On Oct 16-17 a Kyiv Post reporter rode a train from Kyiv’s main rail station to Chelm Poland, a popular destination for connection trains for people travelling from Ukraine to Warsaw and other cities in Poland.
On that night there had not been any major Russian attacks against Ukraine’s rail network, however, on Oct. 13-14 according to railroad officials, Russian forces hit locomotive and carriage depots, repair facilities, stations and rolling stock across the Kharkiv, Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, and Ternopil regions, and supporting power infrastructure.
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Also, on the night of the trip, Russian missiles and drones,, among other targets hit the western Ukrainian cities of Rivne and Kovel, both station stops along the way. Those attacks hit power grid infrastructure not rail infrastructure.
20:40 – Arrived Kyiv Main Train Station. Ukrzalisnitsiya Train number 23 Kyiv-Chelm фірмовий поїзд (Premium) is on the departure board and posted with an on-time planned departure of 21:46. Worryingly, the departure board is filled with other trains that are massively late. Trains from Bucharest, Vienna, Warsaw and Chop among others are delayed six hours or more.
21:00 – A somewhat harried but still reasonably polite lady at the Ukrzalisnitsiya information booth advises Train 23 to Chelm is two hours late and currently is scheduled to depart at 23:46.
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23:00 – The Ukrzalisnitsiya website updates and shows Train 23 has been assigned another delay, six and one half hours this time. The information note says that the train’s status is “being assembled”.
The delayed train app also assigns a reliability probability of the predicted departure time. Worryingly, the reliability of the predicted departure time for Train 23 is: “Somewhat.”
Midnight-02:00 – Waiting lounges thin out. There is constant movement of people from the station by foot and vehicles notwithstanding the military curfew banning civilian presence on the streets of Kyiv between 01:00 and 05:00. Police walking through the station seem not to care.
All cafes and concessions in the station are shut but the toilets remain open. Young people mostly pass the time playing on their smart phones; older people try to nap but it’s difficult because public seating has built-in armrests making lying down on a bench impossible. The more open space of the station becomes cold and people layer up.
02:30 – Air raid warning sirens go off, and station personnel order everyone out of the station. Hundreds of people walk with their luggage about 200 meters to the underground passage running underneath all the station’s track line. The benches lining the walls of the passage are Soviet-era, old plywood, and from millions of commuter bottoms over the decades. There are no arm rests so it’s possible to stretch out.
People get comfortable and some go to sleep. There are no drones, anti-aircraft fire or explosions, it’s a quiet night in our part of Kyiv. An all clear is called in about an hour.
03:30 – People make their way back upstairs, with luggage, to the station’s entrances and go through security again. Everyone is patient.
03:30 – 04:30 – Some sleep and some work their smart phones rearranging travel plans. The basic problem is that rescheduling a connection down the line requires accurate knowledge of when the train will reach the destination. An attendant later told me, “Only God knows that.”
05:00 – A planned departure time of 6:16 for Train 23 is posted. The trip to Chelm normally takes about 10 hours, implying arrival at around 16:00-16:30. Some travelers heading to Warsaw reschedule bookings on the Chelm-Warsaw connecting train from midday or around 3 p.m. departures to the last Chelm-Warsaw train, PKP Intercity train IC 440 departing at 6:18 p.m.
05:40 (or so) – Train 23 rolls into Kyiv main passenger station. It seems strangely long. The cars are numbered non-sequentially with one part of the train with wagon numbers ascending from the middle, and another part with the numbers descending to the middle.
Some passengers scurry from one end of the train to the other searching for the right car. Conductors are polite and professional but some show lack of sleep.
The 1st Class car I was assigned was hands down the newest and best-kept sleeper car I have occupied in more than 30 years using the Ukrainian railroad. It looked inside and out like it had just rolled off the factory production line. Fit-out was to the level of a Scandinavian railroad.
Later, news makes its way through the train that the reason the delay was so long was that the 19:26 train, also to Chelm, had also been delayed so long Ukrzalisnitsiya decided to hitch it onto our train.
06:16 (on my watch): Train 23 departs Kyiv main train station and trundles westward. Almost all passengers go straight to sleep. The bunk is comfortable; temperatures are a pleasant European slightly cool rather than traditional Ukrainian blasting hot. Linens are pre-packed and surgically clean. Hot tea is only Hr.20, less than half what Ukrzalisnitsiya has charged me on other trains.
14:00 – We have a quiet run to Kovel and wait there for more than an hour. We are now almost exactly 12 hours late, so no doubt station and RR personnel are having to juggle things trying to get late trains through the bottleneck along with the scheduled trains.
15:45 (or so) – We roll the 55-60 km to the Dorohusk-Odsada border crossing point. Train staff advise us to prepare passports and similar papers. A friendly Ukrainian customs lady appears in our doorway, asks if we have antiques, weapons or narcotics (none carried), glances about our cabin and that’s Ukrainian customs. A more serious man from the border troops follows in about 15 minutes with a planchette/passport reader around his neck. He uses it to enter our data and goes on his way.
16:00-18:00 – Time passes. Train attendants say we are waiting for Polish border staff and customs to agree to receive out train. By this time most passengers are aware this is unlikely to be quick because we are entering the EU outside the scheduled arrival time, and because Polish border troops/customs have a reputation for unwillingness to commit additional resources if there is extra traffic at the border.
People booking tickets on the last Chelm-Warsaw train cancel or eat the cost; at this rate we won’t get to Chelm for hours. There is zero chance of catching that connecting train. Hotel options in Chelm are limited and almost fully booked.
20:00 – The train rolls about a kilometer to the Polish inspection area. Outside the window all the lights that are on: Obviously in Poland no Russian missiles or drones are attacking the power grid. In due course a Polish customs man and a Polish border police officer visit our car, do their job efficiently and move on. Both spoke competent English but neither understood Ukrainian.
21:00 – We move off on our final leg, Chelm is now 85-90 km away and since we are now in NATO territory the Russians can do little to stop us.
22:45 (ish) – We arrive in Chelm. Passengers disembark, sometimes helping each other with big suitcases. They immediately encounter a physical hurdle: The Chelm railroad station management is obliging people leaving the train platform to go to the station via a foot bridge over the tracks.
This forces travelers to drag their luggage up and down about 50 meters of metal stairs. Once again, the younger and less-heavily burdened passengers assist the older and more encumbered.
23:00 – In the parking lot in front of Chelm station packs of predatory Polish taxi drivers, who would be familiar to any Socialist-era traveler that ever landed at any Socialist airport, greet travelers and offer to drive them to Warsaw or anywhere else in Poland.
Prices are exorbitant; just to the capital €300-400 for a private car with haggling, €500-600 initial quote. Calling an Uber driver from Lublin theoretically is possible but for €400. Bolt that night listed the trip at €210-250.
The drive to Warsaw with a fast driver was a little less than three hours, but traffic laws may have been bent somewhat for that result.