Russian Railways wants free reign on Far East railway

After the start of its invasion of Ukraine, Russia suspended its regular priority rules for the rail network. Since then, Russian Railways (RZD) has had the authority to determine who gets to go first. Now that the regular priority rules are supposed to make a return on 1 January, RZD is pushing to stay in the driver’s seat beyond that date.

More specifically, RZD wants to keep making the priority rules for Russia’s Far Eastern rail infrastructure indefinitely, according to Russian publication Kommersant. Infrastructure in that region is operating at maximum capacity, making priority rules key for the orderly processing of trains.

RZD argues that the introduction of temporary rules under its control has helped to deal with the challenging economic situation. “The temporary rules have shown their effectiveness and adaptability in the current economic circumstances”, a company representative said. According to RZD, it made changes to the priority rules no less than 11 times to aid sanctioned companies.

Reportedly, Russian Railways is already preparing to stay in charge when it comes to Far East priority rules. It is negotiating tariff hikes of around five per cent for companies willing to pay more for guaranteed priority access.

Coal compensation

At the same time, RZD is trying to receive compensation for its forced transportation of low-value goods. No less than 60 per cent of the Far Eastern railway capacity is now taken up by goods prioritised by the Kremlin. Those include coal exports to China, which occupy approximately 100 out of a total of 180 million tonnes of annual rail capacity in the Far East.
RZD makes 44 per cent less than the average type of freight from coal transportation.

Subsequently, Russian Railways wants to “provide for a mechanism to compensate for lost revenues for carriers due to the shift in the balance of transportation towards low-income cargo.”