A trip across the entire country
BR232-035 and TEM2-239 are heading the heavy freight train TMS 534022 from Chruściel to Werchrata. The train is really slowly accelerating after leaving the station Sufczyn on line number 13 Krusze - Pilawa. Even though the schedule of the train implied that both locomotives would be active, the TEM2 was mostly idling throughout the journey, which left the Ludmilla with the task of moving this train of over 3300 tonnes.
As the title implies, the train's journey was passing the entirety of the country. Chruściel and Werchrata are more than half a thousand kilometers away (in a straight line), the first of which lays right near the Russian border (Kaliningrad Oblast'), while the other one right near Ukraine. A train from Russia to Ukraine via Poland might seem like a weird idea, but there seems to be a reason behind that.
Since the start of the full-scale conflict between UA and RU, the border traffic between Poland and Russia/Belarus almost collapsed. The coal imports from Russia to Poland used to come in mostly through the border crossing Braniewo - Мамоново and after the number of trains there had been reduced to 1-2 pairs a day in 2022, the facilities used for transloading the resource at the border had to be converted to a new use not to go bancrupt.
As the company owners' luck would have it, Poland started importing coal with the use of harbours in Gdynia and Gdańsk located around 100 kilometers away from Braniewo. The ports weren't designed to handle such capacity of imports and they developed a way to deal with all this traffic - the transloading areas in the Braniewo area were now to serve as temporary storages for coal imported from the harbours, before further shipping into the country. That's how the Braniewo area got a new role on the railway map of Poland and now serves as a fairly important hub for cargo transports.
The TEM2-239 was produced in БМЗ (Bryansk Machine Works) in 1985 and served in the power pland Połaniec until 2020 when it was purchased by LTC (here under leasing by GB Rail). BR232-035 was produced in 1973 in ВЗОР (Voroshilovgrad Locomotive Works) and served for the Deutsche Reichsbahn until 1993. In 2009 it was repairwed and bought by Orion, ran under leasing for many companies and was bought out in 2023 by Skinest rail, which leased the locomotive to GB Rail. Info from: ilostan.forumkolejowe.pl
Photo by Piotrek/Toprus
A trip across the entire country
BR232-035 and TEM2-239 are heading the heavy freight train TMS 534022 from Chruściel to Werchrata. The train is really slowly accelerating after leaving the station Sufczyn on line number 13 Krusze - Pilawa. Even though the schedule of the train implied that both locomotives would be active, the TEM2 was mostly idling throughout the journey, which left the Ludmilla with the task of moving this train of over 3300 tonnes.
As the title implies, the train's journey was passing the entirety of the country. Chruściel and Werchrata are more than half a thousand kilometers away (in a straight line), the first of which lays right near the Russian border (Kaliningrad Oblast'), while the other one right near Ukraine. A train from Russia to Ukraine via Poland might seem like a weird idea, but there seems to be a reason behind that.
Since the start of the full-scale conflict between UA and RU, the border traffic between Poland and Russia/Belarus almost collapsed. The coal imports from Russia to Poland used to come in mostly through the border crossing Braniewo - Мамоново and after the number of trains there had been reduced to 1-2 pairs a day in 2022, the facilities used for transloading the resource at the border had to be converted to a new use not to go bancrupt.
As the company owners' luck would have it, Poland started importing coal with the use of harbours in Gdynia and Gdańsk located around 100 kilometers away from Braniewo. The ports weren't designed to handle such capacity of imports and they developed a way to deal with all this traffic - the transloading areas in the Braniewo area were now to serve as temporary storages for coal imported from the harbours, before further shipping into the country. That's how the Braniewo area got a new role on the railway map of Poland and now serves as a fairly important hub for cargo transports.
The TEM2-239 was produced in БМЗ (Bryansk Machine Works) in 1985 and served in the power pland Połaniec until 2020 when it was purchased by LTC (here under leasing by GB Rail). BR232-035 was produced in 1973 in ВЗОР (Voroshilovgrad Locomotive Works) and served for the Deutsche Reichsbahn until 1993. In 2009 it was repairwed and bought by Orion, ran under leasing for many companies and was bought out in 2023 by Skinest rail, which leased the locomotive to GB Rail. Info from: ilostan.forumkolejowe.pl
Photo by Piotrek/Toprus