A core management team has been in charge of strategy for the past 22 days, making decisions from aboard randomly chosen trains to avoid being hit by the Russians
sleeper departs, as it has done for as long as anyone remembers, to the retro crackle of Leonid Utyosov’s “By the Black Sea”. The Soviet-era number is a nostalgic ode to Odessa’s sacrifice during the second world war. “My friend is young / And lies burned by battle / No wonder his wreath is golden / And made a city of heroes.” But a walk along the train suggests the music-hall classic has plenty of contemporary resonance.
Natalya, the attendant in charge of carriage seven, says the hospital cars have become a regular feature of the train, attached to the train perhaps every second day. The soldiers are met halfway in Vinnytsia, and transferred to ambulances when the train draws in at around 4am. With few passengers now making their way in between Odessa and Kyiv, it gave the train an extra reason to operate, Natalya suggested. But it is not the only reason.
and exports west, and critical humanitarian supplies back to the centre. Tickets have in effect become voluntary, and the system runs almost entirely on emergency state subsidies, which last month cost 18bn hryvnia .started on February 24th, the system’s management triggered a secret plan worked out in advance for a national emergency. Female staff with families were evacuated abroad. Train drivers were recalled from retirement.
Petro Stetsuk, the controller at Kyiv’s central station, is but one of a number of war heroes keeping the railways running. The former head of Ukraine’s transport police and a 30-year veteran of the railways, 60-year-old Mr Stetsuk has been camped alongside the tracks for the past three weeks. It has been a constant battle, fought alongside a slimmed-down staff of 60 railway workers.
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