Belarusian Railway

Belarusian Railway

The advantageous geopolitical location of the Republic of Belarus predetermined role of its railway as pivotal transport crossroad on the way from Western and Central European countries to Russia and Asian countries (East-West direction), from Scandinavian countries to Ukraine, Moldova, the Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East countries (North-South direction). Two pan-European transport corridors lie via Belarus: Berlin - Brest - Minsk - Moscow - Nizhny Novgorod (Crete corridor II) and two branches of Crete corridor IX: the first one - Kaliningrad/Klaipeda - Vilnius - Minsk - Gomel - Kiev (Odessa) - Kishinev - Bucharest - Alexandropoulos (Greece), the second one - Helsinki - Saint-Petersburg - Vitebsk - Gomel - Kiev (Odessa) - Bucharest.

Engineering and technical characteristics of Belarusian trunk railway that is a part of international transport corridor should correspond to European requirements. Therefore further development of the railway is aimed at modernization of infrastructure that will increase train speed and improve quality of services rendered by the Belarusian Railway. In general, the railway has quite a high-traffic capacity and technical equipment for providing the entire complex of carriage services that mostly comply with international standards.

Railway Infrastructure

The Belarusian Railway is located at the meeting point of different width gauges, it has rather developed infrastructure at Polish-Belarusian border crossings at its disposal. The Railway is able to process all types of cargos including pouring (transshipment) of liquid gas at Motykaly and Svisloch station, transshipment of coal at Beristovitsa station. At the present moment overload capacities of the Belarusian Railway have sufficient reserves for increase of low of traffic by 60-70 %.

The Railway is actively improving quality and developing range of services rendered to cargo owners in order to provide door-to-door delivery. Even today most of railway terminals offer cargo delivery by motor transport of the railway “railway station – consignee depot” and back. The system of full complex client servicing that provides full process of customs clearing as well as all railway operations of cargo dispatch and receipt and delivery of cargos by motor transport of the railway is enabled at the main railway terminals – Brest, Baranovichy, Koladichy, Stepianka.

The Railway processes shipping documents according to agreement with cargo owners, renders customs services, cargo handling operations, storage operations including storage of goods. Storage facilities in Brest (covered storehouse and esplanade) allow placing 100 000 tons of different cargos in temporary storage warehouse in the customs regime.

The Railway possesses a large park of containers in order to satisfy requirements of Belarusian cargo consignors as well as foreign companies while carrying out transportation from European countries via Belarus to CIS and Asian countries.

Information system

The system of preliminary data importation was implemented at Brest railway junction in order to increase speed of organized and specialized trains processing, to decrease detention of railway wagons during customs clearance, to improve system of cargo declaration. The system receives data from freight agencies and the sending station of the Polish State Railways. The Railway organized transfer of assignment deeds and accompanying documents using electronic means. Electronic document for transported goods are prepared at Malashevichy Station (the Polish State Railways) and are transmitted to Brest long before the train arrives. This helps to shorten time of document processing; moreover this technology enables freight agents to receive information about possible delays of specific containers with cargo at the border because of incorrect accompanying documents or absence of necessary enclosures to them.  
The Belarusian Railway takes measures together with State Customs Committee on improving the process of cargo customs clearance. For example, in order to decrease time spent on customs clearing of cargos transported by organized trains, a new Act on mutual support of transit railway carriage of goods transported by organized trains was elaborated and is being implemented. This Act foresees simplification of customs clearance procedure for cargos, use of an additional copy of rail consignment note instead of bonded transportation declaration. In this case the control functions will be realized by means of computers.

In result of mutual actions of the Railway and customs institutions the terms of customs clearance of containers shortened and occasions of container detentions for customs control decreased.

The Belarusian Railway created necessary conditions for providing safety of transported goods. Locking and sealing devices, guarding of cargo on the way and in station parks in case of accumulation of wagons for making up of trains or waiting for train presentation for dispatch help to avoid unsafe transportation.

At the present time the Railway uses a new information system that allows supplying necessary information on location of cargos when they are transported to the destination point.

In 19998, German, Polish and Russian Railways signed an Agreement on information servicing of transportation. Consignors will be able to receive up-to-date information on location of their containers and wagons.

Transshipment and storing services

As a rule, transshipment of cargos that are carried from Western Europe to Russia, Asian countries and backward is realized at border terminals by the receiving railway station. The main transshipment equipment of the Belarusian railways is located at Brest Severny Station. There are mechanisms of the following carrying capacity 160, 50, 32, 20, 12,5, 10 and 6 tones that are used for transshipment of different cargos from European (narrow) gauge wagons to broad gauge wagons and vice versa.

The modern complex on processing and storing of refrigerator containers provides maintenance of the temperature regime by connecting to the external electricity supply source. Two electric cranes MKKC-42K with low-grip spreaders that allow transshipping of containers with tented roofs, caravans, refrigerator containers are installed there.

The container site on processing of heavy-duty containers is equipped with electric cranes of 32 and 50 tones capacity that allow transshipping of 20' and 40' containers.

The length of the containers site for processing heavy-duty and refrigerator containers is 1090 m. There is a track for spotting wagons of 1435 and 1520 mm gauge. The length of container site and special mechanisms allow transshipping of two narrow gauge trains. The possibility of dispatch and acceptance of containers transported by trucks is provided.

Containers can be transported to Brest by railway at the behalf of freight agents and then transshipped on trucks making for Western European countries.

The Railway can accept containers that come to Brest from Western Europe in trucks and then can be transported in Eastern direction by railway.

The site for transshipment of cargos from open wagons and railway platforms of 1435 mm gauge to 1520 mm gauge and vice versa is equipped with electric cranes 10, 30 and 50 tones carrying capacity. The site is 500 m long.

The special equipment allows transshipping of agricultural machinery, equipment, pipes, timber, cars, metal constructions, metal-roll, cargos in boxes and packages. Transshipment of heavy cargos (up to 160 tones) of different forms is realized at a site that is 100 m long.

Transshipment of valuable cargos from covered narrow gauge wagons into broad gauge wagons (and vice versa) is organized in a covered storehouse of depot type. Cargos can be stored here too. 12 wagons of 1520 mm gauge and 12 wagons of 1435 mm gauge can be spotted at a time. Shipping operations are carried out by means of modern diesel lifters. There is a possibility to unload cargos from trucks and to place them into the storage and then load to wagons of narrow or broad gauge (and vice versa).

The covered ramp of 360 m length allows transshipping of piece goods on wagon-to-wagon basis from wagons of narrow or broad gauge (and vice versa).

Depot storage for transshipment of perishable cargos from refrigerator wagon sections and from refrigerator wagons are equipped with cut-in scales. The transshipment can be realized together with weighing. The usable storage length is 350 m. The loose and bulk goods are transshipped by jib rail cranes at the site that is 350 mm long.

The transshipment tracks for transshipment of corn cargos from 1435 mm gauge wagons to 1530 mm gauge wagons are equipped with Noria loading elevators.

The Belarusian Railway offers services of inter-modal transportation to Western Europe in cooperation with Brestvneshtrans company that has a transshipment terminal that is 5 km from the Belarusian-Polish border at its disposal. They offer combined truck & railway transportation with delivery to the warehouse of consignor.

During the transshipment process the quantity and quality of goods is controlled all day long by experts of Belarusian Chamber of Commerce.

According to the wish of a consignor cargo can be stored in the mode of temporary storage warehouse and bonded warehouse and further delivered to a consignee according to the time table and in needed quantities.

The transshipment is realized on open sites and in covered storehouses with adherence to needed temperature regime for perishable cargos from 0 C and higher.

The Belarusian Railway is one of the essential parts of transport conveyor and takes all possible measures in order to promote unhindered transportation of goods that are transported from Europe to Asia and vice versa, to improve conditions for transit of goods, to offer services that will satisfy consigners, and freight agents. The Belarusian Railway is open to cooperation with interested partners on basis of fruitful and beneficial cooperation and guarantees high level of forwarding services.