DIRECT RAIL TRAFFIC

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20139, 8 January 1940, Page 11

DIRECT RAIL TRAFFIC

RUSSIA AND GERMANY OIL AND. WHEAT ON WAY LONDON, Dec. 25. It has been semi-officially announced in Moscow that direct railway traffic between Russia and Germany has been opened as a result of the conclusion of negotiations. Trainloads of mineral oil and wheat are already going to Germany across Poland, crossing the frontier at eight points, including Malkin, Brest-Litovsk and Przemysl. No figures are available of the amount of traffic expected under the new agreement, but it will be limited by a shortage of Russian and German rolling stock, and by the necessity for reloading shipments at points where Soviet gauges meet standard European gauges.

The Polish railways are of the standard European gauge, and are mostly being widened to the Soviet gauge in the Russian occupied Poland, but the new agreement provides that certain lines will retain the standard gauge for three years. The most important of these is the trunk line connecting Rumania and Germany through southeastern Poland, south from Lwow (Lemberg). The retention of the standard gauge in this line makes possible through shipments to Germany from Rumania in German trucks. The line passes through the main Polish-Ukrainian oilfield in a district which is now in Soviet hands. This district, with an estimated annual output of 500,000 tons, is expected to furnish the bulk of Russia’s contribution to Germany’s oil supplies.