March thaws the market

SPRING SURGE

The conference addressed key challenges and opportunities in rail and maritime freight transportation.

Container traffic grew 0.6% in the first two weeks of March, with shipments rising 1.6% over the first 17 days of the month. By contrast, container traffic had declined 4.9% during January–February.

Konstantin Baranov attributed the March rebound to surging imports through Far Eastern ports and border crossings, which jumped 25.7% and 38.1%, respectively. He recalled that container volumes had grown at an average annual rate of 9% over the preceding decade, before the recent slowdown. Container volumes hit a record high of 7.88 million TEU in 2024. Despite an overall 4.1% decline in container traffic in 2025 (down to 7.56 million TEU year-on-year), exports surged 8.5% to reach a record 1.78 million TEU.

"Russian Railways is committed to expanding container transport," Baranov stated. To meet container operator demand, Russian Railways has allocated approximately 3,500 train slots through 2027, with 1,000 departing from the Far East.

EXPANDING¬ ¬CONTAINER CAPACITY 

Starting in 2025, Russian Railways launches six daily container trains (100–127 cars each) on the eastern route with return services. According to Konstantin Baranov, to maximize infrastructure utilization and meet shipper demands year-round, these schedules were designed for direct container train departures from the following stations: Khovrino, Shushary (East Siberian Railway), Elektrougli, Bely Rast, Selyatino, Vorsino (Moscow Railway), Tobolsk, Zheleznodorozhny (Sverdlovsk Railway), Kleshchikha, Chik (Zabaykalskaya Railway), and Bazaiha (Krasnoyarsk Railway).

Last year, procedures were also established for organizing container transportation on trains that change rolling stock during transit. This enabled the resolution of key operational challenges: organizing container transportation in gondola cars and their subsequent transshipment to fitting platforms.

In support of the Russian Railways business community, working with the Eurasian Union of Railway Freight Transport Participants (EUP), the organization secured approval to vary container train length by one physical car from the announced length.

In February of this year, a decision was made to extend the possibility of replenishing empty containers on trains traveling from Oktyabrskaya, Moskovskaya, Sverdlovskaya, and West Siberian railway stations to destinations on the Krasnoyarsk and East Siberian Railways, limited to no more than 30% of the train's maximum capacity.

A month earlier, in January 2026, during a period of low business activity, to provide loading resources for timber harvesting enterprises in Eastern Siberia and Krasnoyarsk Krai, the RZD holding company supported a business initiative to dispatch container trains composed entirely of empty containers to the West Siberian Railway and Krasnoyarsk Railway.

Last month, a new, more flexible approach to allocating loading resources was implemented. Specifically, for intra-railway traffic, a decision was made to dispatch empty rolling stock in response to coordinated requests without additional verification procedures. Since March, these conditions have been extended to the supply of empty rolling stock for 3rd class cargo across the entire Russian Railways network.

Dmitry Koptev