Ukrzaliznytsia train delays reach nearly 11 hours: which services are running late on September 2

On September 2, Ukrzaliznytsia is recording large-scale delays to the movement of a number of passenger trains across the network. According to the company's official service for tracking delays, cited by RBC-Ukraine, the maximum delay exceeds ten hours. The leader in delays is train No. 103/104 on the Lozova – Lviv route: its delay stands at 10 hours 48 minutes, the train is en route, and the forecast arrival at the terminal station is 19:24.

Key services with the maximum delay

In addition to the Lozova–Lviv service, train No. 1/2 Kharkiv – Rakhiv is delayed by more than seven hours (delay of 7 hours 2 minutes, expected arrival 16:57). Train No. 3/4 Dnipro – Uzhhorod (6 hours 59 minutes, arrival 18:09) and train No. 31/32 Zaporizhzhia – Przemyśl (6 hours 58 minutes, arrival 16:17) are running behind by nearly seven hours. Several other trains have delays of more than four hours: No. 21/22 Kharkiv – Lviv — 5 hours 15 minutes, No. 53/54 Dnipro – Odesa — 5 hours 14 minutes, No. 7/8 Kharkiv – Odesa — 4 hours 50 minutes, No. 5/6 Zaporizhzhia – Ivano-Frankivsk — 4 hours 32 minutes, No. 85/86 Dnipro – Lviv — 4 hours 19 minutes.

Cause of the disruptions: a strike on railway infrastructure

The large-scale delays are directly linked to the nighttime ballistic strike by Russian forces on September 1 against the railway infrastructure of Kyiv. The depot and other railway facilities were hit. According to available data, seven people were killed as a result of the shelling, six of them Ukrzaliznytsia employees. The destruction and damage to infrastructure facilities led to the redistribution of routes, transfers, and a shift in the schedules of dozens of services, which is reflected in the delays already recorded on September 2.

Contradictory data

Publications on the topic differ in their assessments of the scale of the trains affected by the delays. The official Ukrzaliznytsia service, on which RBC-Ukraine relies, at the time of the information update highlights a group of services with the greatest delay (the list includes around nine trains with delays of 4 to 11 hours), whereas the TSN outlet reports that more than 30 Ukrzaliznytsia trains are delayed due to Russian shelling. Thus, one version reflects the "top" of the list by size of delay at a specific point in time, while the other reflects the total number of delayed services; the exact figure depends on the time of recording and the counting criteria. The headline estimate of "nearly 11 hours" in the titles matches the actual figure of 10 hours 48 minutes for the Lozova – Lviv service.

Passengers are advised to check the current status of their train in the official Ukrzaliznytsia delay-tracking service before traveling, to take into account the possible change in arrival time and route, and to allow extra time for transfers, since the schedules of a number of trains were changed after the shelling.