{"id":262300,"date":"2025-08-05T18:20:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T08:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=64837"},"modified":"2025-08-05T18:20:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T08:20:21","slug":"russian-railways-sends-employees-on-unpaid-leave-due-to-freight-downturn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=262300","title":{"rendered":"Russian Railways sends employees on unpaid leave due to freight downturn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Russian Railways (RZD) is sending employees from management offices on unpaid leave. The operator\u2019s freight business is facing a severe downturn, which is forcing it to take financial measures.\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\n<span id=\"more-64837\"><\/span>Employees have been forced to take two days per month off at their own cost since June, according to Russian media. They cite sources explaining that the policy does not constitute a \u201cformal decision\u201d and only impacts the management department of the company.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe decision is grounded in a wish to keep the staff of the company, which would have to be shrunk in the current economic situation. The situation was discussed with the rail trade union, which supported the proposal about two holidays\u201d, a source is quoted as saying.<\/p>\n<h2>Shippers leave RZD stranded without a payload<\/h2>\n<p>Russian media and RZD sources say that freight no-shows are the primary reason behind the unpaid leave measure. In recent months, more and more companies have booked RZD\u2019s rail services, only to cancel the transportation at the last minute. In March, shippers failed to load 4,5 million tonnes of freight for which rail transportation was booked, according to RZD. By May, that had grown to 24,5 million tonnes.<\/p>\n<p>The failure of shippers to present freight for transportation could have aggravated the problems with loading on the Russian network. RZD is now on a long streak of declining monthly loading rates, with the decrease accelerating in recent months.<\/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 now wants to increase the fines for freight no-shows. Those were last revised in 1998, according to Russian media, and are set at ten rubles (0.10 euros) for a tonne of freight, and between 50 and 200 rubles (2.16 euros) for a container.<\/p>\n<div style=\"border: 2px solid #0a4e7f; padding: 15px 20px 20px 20px; border-radius: 10px; background-color: #e7f1f8; margin: 20px 0;\">\n<p><strong>RZD has struggled to meet transportation demand<\/strong>, especially on particular stretches of rail towards China. With such low fines, it becomes attractive for shippers to book capacity to guarantee a slot on RZD&#8217;s busy network, even if the shippers are not yet sure that there will be goods to ship.<\/p>\n<p>The operator now wants to <strong>raise fines ten times<\/strong> to make no-shows more costly for shippers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2>RZD&#8217;s problems are older than this<\/h2>\n<p>Even if RZD cites freight no-shows as the underlying reason for the unpaid holiday, the financial problems at RZD precede these problems. In 2024, the operator\u2019s net profit dropped nearly ninefold \u2013 from 118,3 billion rubles in 2023 (approximately 1,3 billion euros) to 13,9 billion rubles (around 150 million euros). In the first half of 2025, RZD&#8217;s net profit fell by 95% to 2,7 billion rubles (approximately 30 million euros). In other words, essentially all profits have evaporated in a matter of about two years.<\/p>\n<p>That has happened in part because of a lack of train drivers and maintenance staff. RZD has also struggled with a shortage in locomotives and spare parts, and a reorientation of trade towards China has put growing strain on the capacity of the Russian rail network. Trains need to travel much further on average to export goods than previously.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"readmore\">\n<div class=\"readmore-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/specials\/2025\/07\/09\/data-of-the-week-russian-freight-loading-in-freefall\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/file6i9nzxqzxhdlb4gdil1-128x128.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"readmore-thumbnail\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"readmore-info\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/specials\/2025\/07\/09\/data-of-the-week-russian-freight-loading-in-freefall\/\" class=\"readmore-title\">Data of the week: Russian freight loading in freefall<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russian Railways (RZD) is sending employees from management offices on unpaid leave. The operator\u2019s freight business is facing a severe downturn, which is forcing it\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":[10863,13061,47,309,310,311],"tags":[12634],"class_list":["post-262300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-europe","category-loading","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\/262300","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=262300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262301,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262300\/revisions\/262301"}],"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=262300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=262300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=262300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}