It has been quite the saga for the past two years: the development of loading volumes on the Russian rail network. Operator Russian Railways (RZD) informs the world each month about its figures. Apart from a brief recent hiatus, RZD has not seen positive numbers since early 2024.
RZD posted figures for the entire year of 2025 in the beginning of January. The overall picture is not surprising, with the annual year-on-year loading change sitting at -5.6% compared to 2024. In total, the rail operator loaded approximately 1.1 billion tonnes of freight.
The -5.6% is a sizable downturn, but it is certainly not as bad as it could have been, when looking at various moments in 2025. Especially in the spring months, the year-on-year loading decline approached -10% (see the last graph).
In terms of the company’s transport performance, the decline amounted to -1.8%. With the inclusion of empty wagons, performance worsened by 1.2%. This could be explained by Russia transporting more goods to the Far East (China). That has grown the need for long-haul operations, boosting transport performance in tonne-kilometres relative to the weight of freight transported. RZD specifies that the demand for exports in the eastern direction grew by 6.5% to 163.5 million tonnes.
“External factors” to blame
Russian Railways cites “a host of external negative factors”, which led to the decline in the loading of various types of bulk freight. One can only guess which negative factors led to those losses. RZD is more transparent about the cause for the oil loading decline and identifies reparation downtime on oil refineries as one.
As a result of the business hiccups at Russian Railways, the company was forced to reduce its investment programme by around 20% for 2026. That means less spending on railway projects that are supposed to maintain and boost transportation capacity across the country.
The government has also taken note of the situation, and is looking to help RZD in attracting more freight to the railways. Rather than citing the growing economic problems in the country, Transport Minister Andrei Nikitin argues that the road sector is out-competing Russian Railways.
Nikitin indicated that measures would be taken to address the “certain imbalance between road and rail transport” in freight handling. Additionally, Nikitin confirmed that Russian Railways would receive support for its freight attraction initiatives.
Reason for Russian optimism?
Russia remains optimistic that freight volumes will grow in the coming years. According to the current baseline scenario, freight loading by rail is projected to reach 1.504 billion tonnes by 2028, marking a 15.1% increase from 2024. Over the same period, freight turnover is expected to climb to 3 trillion tonne-kilometres, which would be a 21% rise compared to 2024.
Is there some merit to those expectations? After all, in October 2025, loading even grew slightly compared to October 2024. Moreover, the most serious monthly setbacks in the spring of 2025 seem to have passed their peak.
Despite that, it is unlikely that Russia will return to growth. Earlier in 2025, the president of Russia’s central bank warned that all of Russia’s economic resources are being used. Moreover, she said that there was no prospect for further growth. Any gains for Russian Railways will therefore indeed have to come from a modal shift, but adding 400 million tonnes in two years time seems like a very steep hill to climb.