OREANDA-NEWS. January 26, 2012. Marculesti-Soroca, a railway branch, is planned to be constructed in Moldova. It will pass round Transdniestria and make the path to Ukraine 235 km. shorter. According to Anatolie Salaru, minister of transport and road infrastructure, this 55 km long segment of the rail road will allow to shorten the path to Ukraine nearly by half, to activate transit cargo transportation and to reduce expenses of economic entities.

Moldova’s authorities have addressed to the leaders of EU, EBRD and EIB with the request to back the project appraised at about 70 mln. euros. Anatolie Salaru has reminded that at present trains transiting through the territory of Moldova have to detour: they enter Moldova through Ungheni, and then, to enter Vinnitsa (Ukraine), they first have to go through Tiraspol and through the checkpoint at the station of Razdelnaya, and then through the northern part of Moldova, which is extra 450 kilometers.

The segment of Marculesti-Soroca will connect railway stations of Ungheni, Falesti, Balti, Marculesti with stations of Soroca and Yampol (Ukraine), the minister of transport and road infrastructure has noted. The new branch is supposed to be parallel to already existing one, bypassing the territory of Transdniestria.

The length of the railway of Moldova makes up 1232 km. in 2006 Transdniestra has declared the property belonging to the Railway of Moldova the property of Transdniestria, and railway stations of Tiraspol, Ribnita and Benderi were excluded by Moldova from the international register of railway stations and nearly all trains from Moldova are passing by Transdniestria. Nowadays, only two passenger trains from Chisinau are going through the territory of Transdniestria: Chisinau- Moscow and Chisinau - Odessa.

The rest, including fright trains carrying Moldovan and Transdniestrian production, are going through the north of Moldova. As a result the way has become 500 km. longer, the cargo transportation costs significantly grew and cargo transportation have declined as far as the capacity of the “northern path” is 2 times less than the Transdniestrian one.