Senior UK rail industry leaders visited Kyiv on January 11 to express their support for Ukrainian Railways (UZ) colleagues.
Rail Partners CEO Andy Bagnall and new Chairman David Brown (Managing Director of Arriva’s UK rail division), as well as First Rail MD Steve Montgomery, joined representatives from Europe and the USA to present a cheque for more than £106,000 to Ukrainian Railways management and trades union leaders.
The money - donated by rail industry companies including Arriva Trains, FirstGroup, Direct Rail Services, GB Railfreight, Freightliner, MTR, Porterbrook, Angel Trains, Govia and Serco via the Global Ukraine Rail Task Force (GURTF) - is already being used to provide emergency food packages for UZ staff and their families displaced from front-line communities in eastern Ukraine by Russia’s illegal invasion.
The current batch of donations and food packages is the third to be organised by the GURTF, and the group is planning further fundraising efforts.
Yevhen Liaschenko, chairman of the UZ Management Board, told RAIL: “It’s very important to support our workers and their families. More than 7,000 food packages have been distributed as a result of these donations.”
Bagnall said: “It was a privilege to meet the ‘Iron People’ of Ukraine’s railways and hear firs-thand about the work they’ve been doing to keep the railway running in incredibly challenging circumstances.
“It’s important for us to raise awareness of Ukrainian Railways’ struggle and to show solidarity. Anything we can do as the railway family to help highlight what they are achieving - in very difficult circumstances - makes a
