For many residents of Belarus, rail transport is one of the most comfortable, reliable and affordable travel options. The history of the Belarusian railway began more than 150 years ago - in 1862, when train traffic was opened on the Grodno-Porechye section.
Today Belarusian Railways occupies a leading position in the national market transport services... Every year, rail transport in Belarus transports more than 140 million tons of cargo and 90 million passengers, providing over 60% of the country's total freight turnover and 30% of passenger turnover.
The structure of the Belarusian Railway
The Belarusian Railway includes 29 organizations, each of which has the status legal entity; 7 separate structural divisions (branches); as well as 3 representative offices abroad - in Russia, Kazakhstan and Poland. In total, the Belarusian Railways employs over 79,000 people. Among them are representatives of about 500 professions. Railway workers honor their traditions - about 400 labor dynasties work on the highway.
The Belarusian Railway has 572 passenger stopping points and 320 passenger stations, 19 large stations, including 4 out of class. More than 200 thousand people are transported by rail on average per day.
The organization of cargo transportation is provided by 370 stations: 9 of them are sorting stations and 27 are freight stations. The average daily handling volume exceeds 200,000 tons.
Passenger Transportation
« Belarusian chygunka"- a brand with a worldwide reputation. Today, passenger rail links connect Belarus with Paris, Nice, Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Bucharest, Vienna, as well as the capitals and administrative centers of Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Kazakhstan.
In communication with the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Kazakhstan, up to 34 pairs of trains of constant circulation form the Belarusian Railways run. Including the Belarusian Railway forms 6 international branded trains, of which 5 are in communication with the Russian Federation and 1 with the capital of Ukraine.
In recent years, the system of passenger rail transportation in Belarus has significantly changed. Today, passenger transportation by public railway transport is carried out in the following types messages:
- city (city lines);
- regional (regional lines);
- interregional (interregional lines);
- international (international lines);
- commercial (commercial lines).
City lines represent the transportation of passengers within the city of Minsk, the regional center and beyond, but not further than stations (stopping points) located in satellite cities. Today, modern 4-car electric trains of city lines connect Minsk with three satellite cities: Zaslavl, Rudensky and Smolevichi.
Passengers are in constant demand regional business class trains... On November 19, 2011, regular traffic was opened on the Minsk-Baranovichi-Minsk and Baranovichi-Brest-Baranovichi routes, and a month and a half later, business-class regional trains began to run on the Minsk-Orsha-Minsk route. The work carried out to modernize the infrastructure and electrify the Osipovichi-Bobruisk section made it possible, starting from April 6, 2013, to carry out transportation by trains of regional business class lines between Minsk and Bobruisk.
Since May 2013, new routes of business-class regional lines have been introduced on the Orsha-Krichev-Kommunary, Kommunary-Mogilev sections; in September 2013 - at the Minsk-Zhlobin section; in 2014 - on the Minsk-Molodechno section.
Regional economy lines provide transport services for the segment of passengers not covered by business class lines, and are the most massive type of transportation.
Interregional lines represent the transportation of passengers between Minsk and regional centers, as well as between the regional centers of the republic. Depending on the speed of delivery to the destination, the number of stops along the route, interregional lines are divided into business and economy class.
The movement of trains of interregional lines of business class is carried out on the directions connecting the capital with Brest, Gomel and Vitebsk.
International lines- transportation between the Republic of Belarus and other states. They provide passenger traffic between the city of Minsk, regional centers of the republic and capitals, as well as individual regions of other states.
The Belarusian Railway pays great attention to improving the quality of passenger service and upgrading rolling stock. Within the framework of the State Program for the Development of Railway Transport of the Republic of Belarus for 2011-2015, Belarusian Railways purchased 7 passenger diesel locomotives; 16 electric trains manufactured by the Swiss company "Stadler Bussnang AG"; 9 diesel trains of different composition developed by the Polish company PESA Bydgoszсz JSC.
Purchase procedure travel documents
Ticket sales at Belorusskaya railroad fully automated and carried out through the Express-3 automated control system.
To sell travel documents for trains of regional economy-class lines and city lines using bank payment cards, self-service payment and information terminals have been installed.
In February 2011, a system for selling travel documents of the Belarusian Railways was put into operation on the website www.poezd.rw.by.
Introduced electronic registration when purchasing tickets via the Internet, which allows the passenger to travel on the train in accordance with the order paid via the Internet without issuing a travel document at the ticket office.
Transit benefits
The favorable geopolitical location of the Belarusian Railway at the intersection of the II and IX pan-European transport corridors, at the junction of the 1435 mm and 1520 mm gauge, determines its role as an important link between the countries of Europe and Asia. Today, the priority area of the Belarusian Railways is the development of transit traffic. Share of transit in the total volume freight transport on the Belarusian highway is about 30%.
A number of stable railway directions of transit cargo flows have formed in Belarus. First of all, this is the transportation of goods to the ports of Latvia along the Zaolsha-Bigosovo route, as well as in communication with Kaliningrad region and Lithuania. Transportation to and from the EU countries is important within the framework of the Pan-European transport corridor No. II, as well as between the countries of the Baltic and Black Seas within the framework of the Pan-European transport corridor No. IX.
The transfer of goods to the Belarusian Railways in the East-West-East traffic is carried out in three border crossings: Brest-Terespol, Bruzgi-Kuznitsa Belostotskaya and Svisloch-Semyanovka. The main capacities of the transshipment and storage infrastructure are concentrated on the border with Poland, there is a significant potential for organizing the transshipment of bulk cargo. The cargo terminals provide a full range of services for the handling and storage of goods of various nomenclature.
The Belarusian Railway is ready to provide reliable transport connection between China and European countries, to become the optimal transport and logistics link in the implementation of large-scale projects in the field of economics and transport logistics.
Over the past years, the number of regular freight container trains running between China and Western Europe has been steadily growing. Today, trains such as:
- China - Poland (Chengdu-Lodz);
- China - Germany (Chengzhou - Hamburg);
- "New Silk Road" China - Germany (Chongqing-Duisburg);
- BMW Germany - China (Leipzig - Shenyang);
- Ford Germany - China (Duisburg - Chongqing);
- "Saule" Lithuania - China;
- China - Germany (Wuhan - Hamburg);
- China - Spain (Yiwu - Madrid).
Infrastructure modernization
The strategic goal of the Belarusian Railway is to modernize the infrastructure. One of the most important projects in this area is the electrification of railway lines.
Today, the railway lines are fully electrified within the framework of the II Pan-European Transport Corridor.
A large-scale investment project is being implemented to electrify the Gomel-Zhlobin-Osipovichi and Zhlobin-Kalinkovichi sections of the IX Pan-European Transport Corridor. In September 2013, the first stage of this project was implemented - the Zhlobin-Osipovichi section was opened.
After the completion of the electrification of the Zhlobin-Gomel section, the operational length of the electrified sections of the Belarusian Railways will be 1,091.2 km, or 19.5% of the total length of the line.
In September 2015, the Belarusian Railway started electrifying the Molodechno-Gudogai-state border section.
Much attention is paid to the development of the infrastructure of the freight economy. In particular, in 2015, Belarusian Railways completed the modernization of the Kolyadichi City Freight Station, which is part of the Minsk Transport and Logistics Center, as a result of which its storage and processing capacities were significantly increased. Today the Kolyadichi station is the most important link in the organization of export-import freight traffic on the Belarusian Railways, including container ones. At the Kolyadichi station, cargo handling and transshipment is carried out to the regions of Belarus, as well as to the CIS countries, the Baltic States and far abroad, using the possibilities of rail and road transport.
Cooperation with foreign countries
The Belarusian Railway actively cooperates with the railway administrations of the CIS countries, the Baltic States, the European Union and far abroad, and also participates in the activities of such international transport organizations as:
- Council on railway transport member states of the Commonwealth;
- Organization for Cooperation of Railways;
- International Union of Railways;
- Coordination conference on the planning and implementation of transportation in international passenger traffic
- International Association "Coordination Council for Transsiberian Transportation".
Representative offices of the Belarusian Railway abroad:
- v Russian Federation
Russia, 125047, Moscow, pl. Tverskoy Zastava, 5a, office 219,
Tel./fax (+7 499) 262 94 27,
[email protected]
- in the Republic of Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, 010000, Astana, st. D. Kunaeva, 6,
Tel. (+7 7172) 60 04 99, fax (+7 7172) 60 04 98,
[email protected]
- in the Republic of Poland
Republic of Poland, PL 00-681 Warsaw, ul. Hoza 63/67,
Phone: tel./fax (+48 22) 47 44 080, tel. (+48 22) 47 44 822
[email protected]
BCh (Belarusian Chygunka) is a state carrier subordinate to the Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Belarus. The railway network in Belarus is extensive. It ranks third in the CIS after Russia and Ukraine, so rail transport in the republic is well developed. For example, in the same direction Moscow - Minsk there are several BCh trains of different service levels.
BC trains are divided into business class (branded trains) and economy (non-branded). The economy includes trains with old carriages. They don't have air conditioning, so it's hot in summer and cold in winter. The interior of the carriages is outdated. At the same time, even in old trains, a high level of service is observed - they have polite conductors and are always clean.
From the types of cars in economy class, reserved seats, coupes and SV are available. V second-class carriage no air conditioner and dry closet. There is only an ordinary toilet that closes at the stations, which is inconvenient. The compartment and SV have air conditioning, but there is also no dry closet. On a non-branded train, the air conditioner may not work well even if it is on.
We recommend traveling in Business Class. Such trains have their own name - "Minsk", "Belarus", "Neman", etc. In terms of comfort, they correspond to the branded trains of Russian Railways. All cars have air conditioning and dry closets. V branded trains often the fare includes meals (a set of meals or a hot lunch), a TV is installed in the SV. Each compartment has sockets, a conductor call button, and the door closes with an electronic lock.
You can find out how comfortable the train is when buying a ticket on the Tutu.ru website (step "seat selection"). There, each type of carriage has a description, information on the availability of an air conditioner and dry closet, and passenger reviews. Reviews can only be left by those passengers who actually traveled on this train.
Several types of new trains with a high level of comfort operate within the country. These are trains with seated seats - other classes of service are not required here, as the journey lasts no more than a few hours. In the direction Minsk - Vilnius, sit-down trains of Polish production, consisting of three carriages, run. Electric trains of the EPM series run in the direction of Minsk - Gomel. In the second class there is an air conditioner and a dry closet, soft seats with a folding table, a socket between the chairs. The first class carriage is spacious and has leather seats. In terms of comfort, EPM trains resemble the Sapsan economy class.
New comfortable electric trains of the EPG and EPR series have been launched on regional and city lines (in the area of the capital). But there are still many old electric trains with rigid benches and no air conditioning on the lines. Prices for suburban transport in Belarus are among the lowest in Europe - they are on average 4 times lower than in the Russian Federation and 8 times lower than in Germany.
At the moment, the main problem of Belarusian trains is the obsolescence of wagons. In early 2012, the park passenger cars the Belarusian mainline consisted of about 1700 units. Of these, 56% were recognized as worn out. The government is trying to renew the wagons - most of them are ordered from the Gomel VSZ.
By the quality of service "BC" are in second place after Russia among all carriers of the CIS countries. For example, Belarusian trains are much better than most trains in Ukraine. Enough high quality trains "BC" are confirmed by the rating on the site Tutu.ru - almost all of them have an assessment of 8 or 9 points out of 10.
Minsk-Passenger - main railroad station and the main station of the Belarusian capital. Since the Minsk transport hub is one of the most significant transport centers in Europe, trains of all categories run through it constantly, as a result, the train schedule in Minsk is very busy.
The station connects the Belarusian capital with a number European countries... Branded passenger trains carry out regular passenger transportation to Austria (Vienna), Bulgaria (Varna), Hungary, Germany (Berlin), the Netherlands, Romania, France (Paris, Nice), Czech Republic (Prague) and Switzerland (Bazyl).
Trains depart from the Minsk-Passenger train station long distance to many cities of the near abroad. Direct message Minsk has with Russian cities Adler, Anapa, Arkhangelsk, Volgograd, Irkutsk, Kaliningrad, Kislovodsk, Kursk, Moscow, Murmansk, Novorossiysk, Novosibirsk, Saratov, St. Petersburg, Chelyabinsk and a number of others.
Minsk-Passenger is the starting point for passenger trains international traffic connecting Minsk with Evpatoria, Kiev, Zhitomir, Lvov, Mariupol, Odessa, Simferopol, Chernivtsi and Feodosia in Ukraine, Karaganda in Kazakhstan, Chisinau in Moldova, Warsaw in Poland and the Baltic capitals Vilnius and Riga.
Republican trains carry out regular flights to the regional and regional centers of Belarus (Baranovichi, Brest, Bobruisk, Vitebsk, Gomel, Grodno, Kalinkovichi, Orsha, Pinsk, Polotsk and others). Express trains run in the direction of Baranovichi, Brest, and Gomel, and commuter trains connect Minsk with Borisov, Brest, Molodechno, Orsha and Osipovich.
Minsk-Passenger railway station is located in the city center. There are information and service centers, storage rooms and waiting rooms at the station. Ticket offices for suburban and passenger train tickets accompany a detailed timetable indicating the direction of travel, train number, arrival and departure times and delivery platform.
Information about the timetable of trains and electric trains for Minsk station:
The train and electric train schedule for Minsk station today includes 247 long-distance trains, commuter trains and electric trains (including diesel engines) - 254, 273 of them are passing and 228 start or end their journey in this settlement. Most trains arrive in the morning. The first, according to the schedule, departs at 00 05 m in the direction of Riga station, and the last arrives at 23 h 52 m.The average parking time on the platform is 0 h 25 m.
Some trains passing through Minsk station do not run every day (they have a special timetable).
The timetable of trains and electric trains for Minsk station presented on this page takes into account seasonal changes, that is, the winter and summer versions of the timetable are always available.
Tickets for trains and commuter trains at Minsk station can be purchased online or at the box office.
If there is an e-mail service check-in for trains running between Russia and Latvia, Russia and Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, issuing boarding passes at ticket offices and self-service terminals not made less than 1 hour before the train leaves the starting station of the route.
Issuance of non-cash electronic tickets for the travel of children under 5 years old without occupying a separate seat, accompanied by adults from stations located on the territory of Ukraine, the site is not produced... ATTENTION! Since March 1, 2015, a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation and a birth certificate are not valid for entry, transit, stay and movement on the territory of Ukraine, an international passport is required.
If the ER has not been passed or is not possible, then you need to get a boarding pass on the form at the ticket offices or self-service terminals of JSC "Russian Railways" ONLY on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Dear passengers! Before traveling on an international route, we ask you to carefully study the passport and administrative (including visa) and customs regulations both in relation to yourself and in relation to your hand luggage and luggage. The carrier is not entitled to monitor compliance with these rules and is not responsible for non-compliance with these rules by passengers. To receive detailed information about the procedure for crossing the borders of the Russian Federation and foreign states, we recommend that you contact the migration, border or customs authorities of the country of destination and each of the countries of destination located on the train route.
The choice of seats for trains between Finland and Russia is temporarily unavailable when issuing an electronic ticket from Finland.
If you do not see a single train, uncheck the "Only with tickets" checkbox and click the "Schedule" button.
To see the cost of the trip, you need to select one of the proposed train options, then indicate the carriage and seat and enter the passenger's personal data. After that, the ticket price and other additional data will be displayed.
Buying e-tickets for commuter trains without specifying places is currently only possible on trains following the routes Yaroslavl direction: Moscow - Pushkino - Bolshevo and the Sochi region: Sochi - Rosa Khutor - Tuapse - Imeretinsky resort - Sochi Airport - Lazarevskaya.
- from settlements of Crimea from 4 to 24 hours;
- v settlements Crimea from 30 minutes to 24 hours.
Registration of "single tickets" to Crimea and back is carried out at the next duration of the change from train to bus:
- from settlements of Crimea from 4 to 24 hours;
- to the settlements of Crimea from 30 minutes to 24 hours.
Deferred payment service is available for trains marked with the "Deferred payment" icon
If a price range is specified for the selected carriage, then the cost varies depending on the type of seat (upper side - upper - lower), and for Lux and SV cars of the Strizh train - depending on the number of passengers in the compartment (1 or 2).
The fare on "Sapsan" trains, on "Swallow" trains of the 700th numbering of the DOSS carrier (JSC "Russian Railways"), as well as on trains with the "DC" sign changes automatically depending on demand and departure date and is not a public offer.
Information on the application of special fares (Senior, Junior, roadmap).
Before issuing travel documents at the stage of filling in the data, make sure that you have chosen the required tariff plan!
At the "Passenger details and payment" step, a seat is reserved and the actual fare is displayed.
As you, dear and respected readers, may have noticed from my previous posts, not so long ago (a month ago) I returned from a trip to our northern neighbor, the Republic of Belarus, about cities, their appearance, attractions, etc. I told you. And now I would like to tell about an integral part and one of the integral symbols of any civilized state - about the Belarusian Railway, especially about the system passenger transportation.
Although the Belarusian Railway (hereinafter-BC, abbreviated from official name BZD-Belarusian chygunka) some 25 years ago was part of the same huge system of railway transport as the railways of Ukraine (hereinafter UZ, abbreviated from the official name Ukrzaliznytsia), during this period many differences were formed between them, about which, basically, and will be discussed. So, the first and most important difference lies in the classification of railway transportation. In the open spaces of the UZ, a more soviet "system of dividing trains into suburban, night passenger (fast, passenger and express) and day passenger (Intercity, regional express and regional train), of which, during independence, only such a concept as a daytime passenger train appeared. "In Soviet times, trains of this format ran like local ones. European. The former suburban trains changed their name to, trains of regional economy-class lines, passenger whether it be divided into trains of interregional lines of economy class, business class and international lines. Also such concepts as trains of urban and commercial lines appeared. Each of these subtypes of trains began to have its own markings and colors, the symbols of these subspecies became the types of flowers growing on the territory of Belarus 
Now let's move on to such an important factor as the quality of service and service at railway stations, stations and inside trains.In this regard, the important advantages of BC in relation to UZ are a much higher degree of modernization of the main stations of the country (interactive electronic displays, better and more modern decoration of cash registers halls and waiting rooms), lack of division into suburban, intercity and international ticket offices, the ability to buy a train ticket using a payment card of international systems, the presence of self-service ticket machines at the largest train stations (however, only the owner of the card of the national payment system can buy a ticket in such a machine , Belkart ", on which I managed to burn myself 1 time.) In the photo below, there is a waiting room and a ticket office of one of these modernized train stations, the station of Grodno station.
Most of the largest Ukrainian railway stations, reconstructed during the 2000s and 2010s, look, though not like after a nuclear war, but clearly do not reach the level of modern ones. Let's just say that such a reconstruction could be considered ideal in the 70s and 80s. last century, but not now
Another important factor in railway transportation is the frequency of train runs. a large number of direct carriages, since Soviet times, on a single line, not counting some sections on the border with other states, the movement has not been canceled.
The third factor by which one can compare UZ and BC is the condition of the rolling stock. It is also worth noting the advantage of the BC - most of the rolling stock of interregional and international lines is either new or open. It was a shock to me to see a modern carriage with a vacuum toilet and an electronic scoreboard, The rolling stock of regional business class lines and city lines entirely consists of modern Swiss-made trains, the so-called Stadler Flirt. By the way, these trains have recently been produced on
territory of Belarus, in the suburb of Minsk Fanipole
On regional lines economy class runs, like ours on suburban, mostly good old-electric or diesel-trains produced by the Riga Carriage Works, although there are newer copies, such as DP1 (620M) or modernized DR1B 
But we also have this kind of copies, so 
that we can say that in terms of the suburban MVPS UZ is approximately on the same level with the warhead. Although this statement is controversial, because the Belarusian rolling stock is much better maintained than the Ukrainian one. The photo below is a typical train "of the only depot serving Belarusian electric trains-Minsk TCh-9 
Another factor by which one can compare our railways is tariffs. It can be said with confidence that in Belarus they are quite cheap, more expensive than in Ukraine, but quite adequate to the incomes of the local population. you will pay 16,800 Belarusian rubles (21.84 UAH, 60.66 rubles), while in Ukraine (in the vastness of, for example, the Lviv railway) it will cost 15 hryvnia (11,538 Belarusian rubles, 41.6 rubles).
So, it is logical that after discussing all the advantages of the Belarusian Railway, you can calmly move on to its disadvantages. The first and most important of them is the high degree of negligence of the employees of the controlling link, there may not be inspectors or conductors at all on the evening train to Minsk. sit in the carriage and never go to check or sell tickets during the whole trip. Belarusian railway stations It is not oturnikchennym, none of them has such a concept as peron control of passengers. Also not very pleasant fact is the absence of glasses in the cup holders in most carriages and the absence of many types of social benefits in the state, which declares itself to be social.
But in general outline it is safe to say that the warhead is still constantly progressing, it has a more or less bright present and a good and understandable future, which, alas, cannot be said about the native UZ.
