This 2001 map also show the Moldovian part of the highway:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth/moldova_pol01.jpg
Was it transferred in July 2001?
Then by the tp:
Reni area is a pene-exclave, but can it be pene-exclave, since it got two
neighbours?
Is Giurgiulesti the only station on Moldova on that line? And is it still
used?
Yes. According to the "Ukraine Belarus Moldova Railway Atlas
Eisenbahnatlas" of 1995 by the Quail Map Company, Exeter, UK, on p11:
that is the only station on that line in Moldova, and it is listed as
closed. The open/closed information is "status normally as in 1981" so it
appears to have been closed some time.
Galati, 12km into Romania and Reni, 6km into ukraine are the nearest
station,s on either side, and both are listed as open. The line is a single
track, and there appears to be a passing loop in the Moldovan stretch, no
doubt at the station. The ilne was built 1877. The Romanian line to Galati
is 1435mm gauge single line, and from Galati through Moldova to Reni is
single line 1520mm gauge.
All other stations from Reni to Basarabeasca arew open, to passengers,
freight or both, including those in Ukraine and in Moldova. There are
several instances of rail crossing a tortuous national border in several
places in the far NW of Moldova too.
Our library has current 1:500,000 maps of Ukraine, and recent Russian
mapping of moldova at the same scale.
We have 1:250,000 and 1:100,000 maps of two areas, the tripoint, and
Palanca, but dating fomr WW2. At this time, Rumania owned the entire region,
including both areas, and the rumanian-Soviet boundary came down the
Dneistr, but didn't then swing west around Palanca, but continued down the
river to the Black Sea.
Old Soviet atlases fomr the 1950s show a small Ukrainean enclave inside
Moldova's southern boundary.
While the July 2001 agreement does not create any new enclaves, as Ukraine
gets not only the road at Palanca, but also the fields to the south (but
with a caveat that allows the Moldovan farmers access rights), this and the
topology of the rail/boundary situation in the NW of Moldova are the same
circumstances as created the Vennbahn enclaves. One wonders if such a
solution was considered at all?
I would term the Reni area a pene-enclave, from a rilaroad point of view at
least. but then so ids the adjacent Moldovan area, as the line from
Basarabeasca dips into Ukraine at Bolgrad, back into moldova until Etulia
and only then into Ukraine again at Reni, then through Moldova's closed
station Giurgulesti, and into Romania.
Speaking of enclaves, my understanding is that the entire air column and
subsurface area of the Vennbahn is Belgian. Thus the various road tunnels,
and road areas under large bridges as in the photo posted, and the road
bridges over the railway, are all Belgian. Just as at a level crossin,g
where a car driving over passes through Belgian sovereignty (cars with
trailers may be simultaneously in Germnany, Belgium and a German enclave if
they stop midway across).
Germany may, for practical purposes, have rights or responsibility for
maintenance of the roads. But I strongly doubt the roads are German.
The Belgian 1:10,000 map of the bridge does not show the road underneath,
but shows 2 boundary pillars either side of the bridge south of the stream.
The German 25k maps seem to show the two pillars north of the stream. I
could not find them myself on either side.
Brendan
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