{"id":228273,"date":"2025-06-02T18:32:02","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T08:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=62904"},"modified":"2025-06-02T18:32:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T08:32:02","slug":"russian-freight-loading-crisis-hits-a-new-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=228273","title":{"rendered":"Russian freight loading crisis hits a new low"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>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.<\/strong><br \/>\n<span id=\"more-62904\"><\/span>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 &#8211; beating February&#8217;s -9.3%.<\/p>\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"visualisation\/22418163\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/visualisation\/22418163\/thumbnail\" width=\"100%\" alt=\"chart visualization\" \/><\/noscript><\/div>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, \u201cplanned repairs\u201d 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\u2019s network. That is 7.3% less than during the same period of 2024.<\/p>\n<div style=\"border: 1px solid #004a99; background: #eaf3fb; border-radius: 4px; padding: 15px; margin: 20px 0;\">\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 10px 0;\">By contrast, some freight categories grew in terms of loading volumes. RZD did not specify the volume numbers.<\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin: 0; padding-left: 20px; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: outside;\">\n<li>\n<div style=\"display: flex; justify-content: space-between; max-width: 400px;\">Fish<strong>+24.4%<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"display: flex; justify-content: space-between; max-width: 400px;\">Sugar<strong>+6.5%<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"display: flex; justify-content: space-between; max-width: 400px;\">Fertilisers<strong>+2.8%<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"display: flex; justify-content: space-between; max-width: 400px;\">Iron ore<strong>+1.1%<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"display: flex; justify-content: space-between; max-width: 400px;\">Non-ferrous ore<strong>+0.7%<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>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 &#8211; the rail operator did not have enough staff and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/specials\/2024\/11\/04\/locomotive-shortage-causes-at-least-93-of-russian-loading-decline\/\"  rel=\"noopener\">locomotives<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>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%.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"readmore\">\n<div class=\"readmore-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/beltandroad\/2025\/01\/10\/russian-railways-records-biggest-loading-collapse-in-15-years\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/%D0%97%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5-%D0%9E%D0%90%D0%9E-%D0%A0%D0%96%D0%94-1-128x128.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"readmore-thumbnail\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"readmore-info\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/beltandroad\/2025\/01\/10\/russian-railways-records-biggest-loading-collapse-in-15-years\/\" class=\"readmore-title\">Russian Railways records biggest loading collapse in 15 years<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13061,78,47,309,310,311],"tags":[12634],"class_list":["post-228273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-loading","category-rail-freight","category-rail-news","category-russia","category-russian-railways","category-rzd","tag-railfreight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=228273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":228274,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228273\/revisions\/228274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=228273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=228273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=228273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}