Pricey trains break down, can’t operate in cold weather

Passengers
have complained of frequent stoppages along routes from Kyiv to Dnipropetrovsk,
Kharkiv and Donetsk. Apart from delays, passengers have also complained that heat
on trains has malfunctioned. And travelers who bought Hyundai train tickets for
the Kyiv-Lviv route, have been given old Soviet trains instead. 

The
Facebook page of Ukrzaliznytsya, the state railway, is filled with derogatory
comments.

“How long
can you mock people with these trains?” one customer wrote.

“Don’t
disgrace yourself, cancel Hyundai trains until spring,” another unhappy
customer wrote.

Ukrainian
and Hyundai Rotem officials aren’t talking much about the problems. But on Dec.
20, the Ukrainian Infrastructure Ministry said the South Korean train maker had
apologized and promised to fix the problems.

Hyundai
blames the breakdowns on sub-zero temperatures. “The program for preparing
Hyundai trains for the winter conditions has already been launched,” the
company wrote, according to the ministry. “It’s our first winter in Ukraine, it
will show us how we can improve.”

Hyundai
Rotem told the ministry that seven new technicians will be added to the support
team in Ukraine. The company, however, has not specified why the trains break
down and Ukrzaliznytsya did not respond to a Kyiv Post request for comments.

Reports
about the trains’ breakdowns have been published almost every other day this
month.

According
to Focus.ua website, Hyundai trains broke down 20 times during the Dec. 6-20
period. There are eight Hyundai trains in operation today, running routes
between the capital and the major cities of Kharkiv, Lviv, Donetsk and
Dnipropetrovsk. Two more trains are expected to be delivered to go on
Kyiv-Odesa route, also at a cost of $30 million each. Given the recent story of
Hyundai trains in Ukraine, the two newcomers will hardly get a warm welcome.

Since Ukrzaliznytsya
is not making official statements, news about the trains’ problems comes from passengers.
Passengers have reported being stranded in broken Hyundai trains in the
countryside with no heat for two hours or more. Others say breakdowns have
lasted several hours.

“Does anyone know any ways to get warm? It’s a
good thing that I’m taking a second class car, it’s just minus 5 C here. In
first class cars, with less people, it’s about -10C,” Yulia Zhuliy from Kyiv wrote on her
Facebook page on Dec. 17 about the Kyiv-Donetsk train that broke down in the countryside.

When the
Hyundais break down, they are sometimes replaced with the trains in the fleet.

“Today we got some (kind
of) very poor train instead of a Hyundai for Kyiv-Kharkiv! There wasn’t even
food or tea available to buy in it! What did the people pay money for?” writes
Andrey Zarudniy on Ukrzaliznytsya’s Facebook page on Dec. 14.

Hyundai train tickets
cost more than tickets for regular, slower trains A second-class ticket for the
Kyiv-Dnipropetrovsk train ranges Hr 220-260 instead of the Hr 130 that it used
to be. But that only buys passengers an arrival time that is 35 minutes faster
– assuming it doesn’t break down.

On Dec.
20, the deputy head of Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee Rafael Kuzmin announced
that the anti-trust body is investigating whether tickets for Hyundai trains are
overpriced.

A video
showing a shiny Hyundai train being towed to the train station by an ancient locomotive
has become an Internet hit.

It was allegedly
recorded near the Grebyonka Depot in Poltava Oblast. In the background,
what sounds like a conversation among railway workers is taking place. One says
that he “sees broken Hyundai trains every night.” The person recording the
video says the new trains are disrupting electrical lines. “Hyundai’s pressure
on the electric line is very strong,” his colleague explains.

Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be
reached at rudenko@kyivpost.com.