Updated: 02.12.2024

Russian Railways has been recording a decline in freight traffic across Russia for the third year in a row amid sanctions that have hit exports and growing difficulties with managing train traffic.

In November, loading on the Russian Railways network fell by 5.8% year-on-year to 95.6 million tons, and in cumulative total for 10 months fell by 4.4%, the transport monopoly reported .

This year, the railway is experiencing its “deepest slump” in the last 16 years  —  “since the 2008–09 crisis,” write MMI analysts. Of the 15 “items” that the company tracks in its statistics, 11 were in the red. Coal shipments — Russian Railways’ main cargo, accounting for about a third of all shipments — fell by 6.2% after coal miners faced a collapse in exports and  were forced to reduce production to a minimum since the 2020 pandemic.

Loading of ferrous metals fell by 9.9% — also following export sales by metallurgists. Timber shipments, which fell by 14.2% last year after EU countries imposed an embargo on supplies from Russia, fell by another 1.7%. Loading of construction materials decreased by 14.4%, cement by 4.7%, grain by 3.3%, chemical materials by 2.9%, and oil and oil products by 1.1%.

“The negative dynamics of freight transportation for the third year in a row very well reflects one of the key trends of the Russian economy in recent years – a steady decline in trade with the outside world,” MMI states: the transportation of export goods, mainly raw materials, is in a steady minus.

In addition, problems are growing in the Russian Railways network itself: the average section speed of trains in the first half of the year fell to a minimum of 12 years (36.5 km/h), and in some months fell below 35 km/h – the lowest value since 1991.

Growing problems with rolling stock, an attempt to turn freight flows to the East have put the Russian Railways network – the third largest in the world – on the brink of transport collapse. Last year, the number of “abandoned trains” increased 2.4 times, to 42.6 thousand, including due to mass breakdowns of locomotives. Russian Railways’ problems have been accumulating for decades – this is a significant depreciation of the equipment fleet in repair depots, as well as diesel locomotives that were produced in Ukraine, notes the editor-in-chief of Rollingstock Agency Sergey Belov.

In 2024, the company was hit by a personnel shortage – Russian Railways lacks train compilers, car inspectors, track fitters, lists the head of Infoline-Analytics Mikhail Burmistrov: “Increasingly, the personnel shortage not only limits, but almost paralyzes the work of stations.”

(C)THE MOSCOW TIMES 2024