Railcars queues at border crossings decreased to 21,000 units

During the week from September 1 to 8, 2022, queues of railcars at border crossings decreased by 3.87 thousand units compared to the previous week – to 21.16 thousand units. Rail.Insider reports about it with the reference to the data of the deputy director of Ukrzalitnytsia’s (UZ) commercial work department Valery Tkachev.

Also, during the period of September 1-8, the number of railcars heading to the western crossings with grain cargoes decreased from 8.5 thousand to 6.8 thousand units.

At the same time, the daily number of railcars for transfer abroad also decreased. During the week from September 1 to 8, the indicator decreased by 165 cars, to 1.68 thousand units. Also, the transfer of grain cargoes increased by 98 railcars, up to 567 units per day.

“UZ expects that the accumulation will decrease to an acceptable level within a week or two. And also after September 10, it will become clear whether additional approval of shippers’ plans is possible,” Valery Tkachev said.

As GMK Center reported earlier, as of August 18, almost 29,000 railcars are standing in the direction of border crossings. During the week of August 11-18, the queue did not change, despite the stable monthly dynamics of reduction.

The main problem for exporting is the different track width. In Europe the width of the railway track is 1435 mm, while in Ukraine it is 1520 mm. According to industry sources, the total daily capacity of Ukrzaliznytsia and companies of neighboring countries to transfer rolling stock from 1,520 mm to 1,435 mm track gauge is 175 cars. In fact, these are only three full-fledged trains with cargo.

As GMK Center wrote before, Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) in August 2022 reduced the transportation of iron and manganese ore by 6.8% compared to the previous month – to 1.89 million tons. In total, for 8 months of 2022, UZ increased cargo transportation by 4.5% compared to the previous month – up to 10.787 million tons.