It's come to this: one third of freight cars in Russia turned out to be superfluous
The average train speed across the entire Russian Railways network has dropped by 2 km/h over the year - from 37.6 km/h in 2023 to 35.7 km/h by the end of 2024. The reason for this is more than 400,000 unused freight cars that have piled up on the tracks and are slowing down deliveries. This is about a third of the entire Russian Railways fleet. Today, only 970 thousand railcars are needed for cargo transportation, while there are 1.38 million railcars, RZD said. How railroads will solve the problem - in the material "Izvestia".
Why the speed of freight trains has decreased
RZD reported a record number of cars not involved in transportation, which slow down the delivery of goods. This especially affects the movement of cargo along the limited directions, in particular along the Eastern polygon (Trans-Siberian and BAM), which has become the "gateway" to China.
- Constant increase of the railcar fleet has led to the fact that we have 1.382 million railcars on public tracks," said Mikhail Glazkov, Deputy Director General of Russian Railways and Head of the Central Directorate of Traffic Management.
According to the specialized Institute of Economy and Development of Railway Transportation, the current volume of cargo in the country requires a fleet of 970 thousand cars. Thus, over 400 thousand railcars are superfluous.
According to Mikhail Glazkov, they "eat up" the capacity of railroads. This has never happened, neither in the times of the Ministry of Railways (MPS), nor in Russian Railways.
Moreover, according to him, 56% of the excessive fleet are gondola cars for transportation of bulk mineral cargoes, primarily coal and ore. And since not a single kilometer of RZD has not been built for the excess fleet, and all the tracks are used for technological operations, the congestion of railcars creates significant problems, especially in the directions with a deficit of throughput capacity. These are the Eastern polygon (Transsib, BAM), as well as north-western, south-western and southern directions.
- We conducted researches and found out that 50 thousand unused cars on public tracks slow down the section speed of transportation by1-2 km/h, - continued Mikhail Glazkov. - If the speed is translated into locomotive crews, it turns out that 120-140additional locomotives and 600-650crews are neededfor transportation of the same volume of cargo.
According to Russian Railways, in October 2024, about 400 empty trains in the Russian Federation were simultaneously running towards the loaded rolling stock, which is 39 thousand empty cars. As a result, the section speed (it characterizes the movement of trains between stations, taking into account stops and turnover of cars) on the Russian Railways network last year fell to 35.7 km/h, as it was in 1992, which naturally affects the economy of transportation. For comparison, it was 41.6 km/h in 2020 and 37.6 km/h in 2023.
Ultimately, the burden falls on the cargo owner and Russian Railways, said Mikhail Glazkov. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the production of new innovative railcars significantly exceeds the retirement of old ones. The difference by year is more than 50 thousand pieces, that is why there is a growth of rolling stock on the railroad network.
"Izvestia" sent inquiries to the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Industry and Trade, railway transportation operators.
The output of railcars has decreased by the end of 2024
A source in one of the railroad operators told Izvestia that the situation with excess railcars is primarily due to infrastructural difficulties - repairs on the network, lack of locomotives and crews.
- The growth of the railcar fleet was known to everyone in advance and corresponded to the government's objectives to develop routes for domestic exporters. Operators invested their own and borrowed funds and bought rolling stock for them. But at the same time, not all of them were ready to meet the needs of exporters for the export of their cargoes," says the interlocutor of the editorial office.
Market participants note that the manufactured fleet of railcars became less in demand after the reorientation of logistics from west to east, and it is not clear what to do with it.
According to Alexander Kotov, consulting partner at NEFT Research and expert, the main reason for the difficult progress of freight trains on the Russian Railways network in 2024 is the lack of traction resources (locomotives) and locomotive crews. If the problem of excessive railcar fleet on the Russian Railways network can be solved by the end of the first quarter of 2025, we can expect an increase in freight traffic. An increase in exports will also help to utilize the railcar fleet, the expert notes.
For the time being, to solve the problem, RZD obliges operators and owners to remove unused railcars to the places of assignment.
- According to the written order of Russian Railways, more than 116 thousand railcars have been put out of service on public tracks, - said Mikhail Glazkov.
The plan for 2025 is to improve the section speed by 2 km/h and increase loading by 2%, he added.
- Today there are excessive types of rolling stock, such as gondola cars, oil and gasoline tanks, and there is a deficit rolling stock - mineral carriers, grain carriers, barrels for transportation of methanol and so on, that is specialized rolling stock. And our proposal is to concentrate the work of railcar building plants on the production of rolling stock that is in demand today in order to support the industry and export the volume of cargo," said Mikhail Glazkov.
This will help to balance production and prevent shortages, he added.
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