A non-public railway track in the system of legal regulation of infrastructure service

Relevance . A non-public railway track is simultaneously an object of property rights and an element of railway infrastructure used in the transportation process. Its use is connected not only with ownership or another legal title held by a particular person, but also with the operating technology of the adjoining station, the delivery and removal of wagons, technical fitness, notifications, and railway operational records. This interrelation complicates the civil-law qualification of the relevant obligations. The purpose of the study is to substantiate the qualification of the use of a non-public railway track as an infrastructure service, the content of which consists in ensuring a lawful, technologically permissible, and duly documented possibility to carry out a transport operation. Objectives : to identify the features of a non-public railway track as an element of infrastructure, to determine the function of the contract for track operation and the contract for the delivery and removal of wagons, and to establish how technical requirements, operational records, payments, and liability affect the content of the obligation. Methodology . The study employs formal legal, systemic, comparative-doctrinal, and functional methods, as well as techniques for interpreting the provisions of transport legislation. Results . It has been established that an infrastructure service is not limited to the provision of a track, a single delivery of a wagon, or the subsequent allocation of expenses, penalties, and losses. Its content is formed by the obligation to ensure the use of the track within the established transport regime. Contractual formalization, technical fitness, the operating technology of the adjoining station, and railway operational records constitute interrelated elements of such a service. Conclusion . An infrastructure service provided in connection with the use of a non-public railway track is a contractual legal construction with property-related content and a pronounced organizational component. In terms of its functional purpose in the transportation process, it differs from obligations arising from lease, carriage, transport forwarding, and other related contracts, and is not interchangeable with them.