Freight loading on the Russian rail network has declined at an unprecedented scale in May 2025. It is the third consecutive month that the loading decrease accelerates, setting a new negative record.
Loading shrunk by 9.4% in May compared to the same month last year. It follows similar decreases of 8.6% and 7.2% in April and March. Most importantly, it is a new negative record in the loading decline – beating February’s -9.3%.
Russian Railways (RZD) specifies that construction materials (-19.4%) account for the biggest loading losses. Moreover, ferrous metals (-29.1%) and scrap metal (-40%) declined significantly in terms of loading rates. There is a lack of domestic demand for products from the metallurgical industry, explains RZD.
Similarly, “planned repairs” on oil refineries have led unloading at those facilities to shrink by 8.9%. In total, during the first five months of 2025, 465,2 million tonnes of freight was sent for transport on RZD’s network. That is 7.3% less than during the same period of 2024.
By contrast, some freight categories grew in terms of loading volumes. RZD did not specify the volume numbers.
-
Fish+24.4%
-
Sugar+6.5%
-
Fertilisers+2.8%
-
Iron ore+1.1%
-
Non-ferrous ore+0.7%
Loading on the Russian network has been in decline for over a year already. A large part of that is due to problems at RZD – the rail operator did not have enough staff and locomotives to carry all freight. However, problems in other sectors of the Russian economy, such as the construction sector, now play a growing role in the loading crisis.
In 2024, Russian rail freight loading took its biggest hit of the past 15 years. It dropped by 4.1%, equivalent to 51 million tonnes. By comparison, loading dropped by 0.1% in 2023, and in invasion year 2022 it dropped by 3.7%.