Attempts to circumvent Western sanctions on Russia and Belarus via rail through Lithuania grew exponentially between March and May. The Lithuanian national rail freight operator LTG Cargo said that four wagons were blocked and sent back at the Lithuanian border in March, while in May this number increased to 62. The company did not provide…
Category: Business
Kazakhstan considering the privatisation of Kazakh Railways
Kazakhstan is considering the privatisation of Kazakh Railways (KTZ). The company is not doing well financially, which has led the transport ministry to discuss alternative structures. Moreover, infrastructure management will likely be removed from KTZ’s portfolio. Marat Karabayev, Kazakhstan’s transport minister, stated that officials are discussing a privatisation of KTZ. The Kazakh rail operator and…
MSC’s takeover of Wärtsila site in Trieste gets a little more complicated
Shipping giant MSC is in talks with various stakeholders to gain control of the former Wärtsila plant in the port of Trieste and convert it into a rail rolling stock production site. However, multiple Italian trade unions are now highlighting how Wärtsila’s attitude might hamper the feasibility of the project. Wärtsila, a Finnish ship engine…
Weather becomes a delaying factor for German rail again
Bad weather-strikes-bad weather. This is the sequence of events that German rail freight has dealt with in the past few weeks. Following the industrial action of North Sea German port workers during the past seven days, bad weather conditions in the German north are set to delay the handling of trains even more. Here’s the…
Hundreds of PKP Cargo employees to be moved to passenger operator
The Polish national rail freight operator PKP Cargo is sailing through troubled waters due to decreasing volumes and performance. The company placed thousands of its employees into inactive status since the beginning of June. However, the situation is less bleak for up to 300 of them, who will be hired by Polregio, a Polish company…
Hundreds of PKP Cargo employees to be moved to passenger operator
The Polish national rail freight operator PKP Cargo is sailing through troubled waters due to decreasing volumes and performance. The company placed thousands of its employees into inactive status since the beginning of June. However, the situation is less bleak for up to 300 of them, who will be hired by Polregio, a Polish company…
Rail freight key to keep Australia’s grain market financially competitive
Bulk transport by rail is among a crop of measures from the Australian GrainGrowers, a national association reprinting the arable farming industry and its supply chain at large. Soaring costs, particularly in transportation, threaten to make home-grown grain financially unsustainable. That is a situation that GrainGrowers recognises as untenable. They seek to address it with…
Ukrainian Railways breaks container volume records and grows capacity
It might sound surprising, but Ukrainian Railways just broke a volume record that has been intact since 2021. Despite continuous challenges in the past years, the state-owned operator recorded an impressive 60 per cent year-on-year increase in TEU (totalling 116,129 TEU) in the first five months of 2024, the highest volume of containerised cargo transported…
North German ports and rail impaired as new warning strike unfolds
Port workers have launched another round of warning strikes, which will prevent North Sea ports in Germany from handling cargo for another 24 hours. The new strike commenced on Monday, 17 June, at 6 a.m. and will last until Tuesday, 18 June, at 6 a.m. Rail freight companies warn about the backlog of services resulting…