OREANDA-NEWS. August 07, 2014. Russian Railways' President Vladimir Yakunin summarised the railway network's operational performance during January-July 2014 during a conference call.

Yakunin emphasised that since the beginning of the year, labour productivity had increased by 10.2% compared to the same period last year.

According to Yakunin, during the first 7 months of 2014, tariff freight turnover increased by 5.7% due to the reorientation of cargo traffic to the ports, including to Russia's East. The shipping volumes of bulk oil increased by over 2%, fertilisers by over 8%, timber by 10% and grain by almost 1.5 times. In January-July, 702.6 million tons of cargo were shipped, 1.3% lower than during the same period in 2013.

The President of Russian Railways also noted that the Company had increased the efficiency of its cargo complex according to various qualitative indicators such as route speed, the average weight of freight trains and the average daily performance of locomotives.

"In July, the Company achieved a positive increase in route speeds of loaded cars to 490 km/day on consignor routes. Since the beginning of 2014, the route speed of container trains was 884 km/day, 1.4% more than during the same period last year," said Yakunin.

The route speed takes into account the speed of a freight train on the stretch, as well as the time spent standing at intermediate stations and the time for technical operations at stations, such as changing locomotives and locomotive crews and technical wagon inspections. The speed of freight delivery from the sender to the final recipient is also taken into account, as well as the speed of cargo movement and all types of downtime, including at marshalling yards, as well as loading and unloading stations.

Passenger traffic on the infrastructure of Russian Railways in the first 7 months of the year decreased by 7.5% over the same period in 2013 due to a fall of 10% in long-distance passenger traffic, although suburban passenger turnover increased by 0.8%.

In January-July 2014, more than 613 million passengers were transported, down 0.3% compared to January-July 2013. Long-distance passengers amounted to over 59 million, down 7.7%, while suburban passenger numbers rose by 0.6% to over 554 million.

The main decrease in traffic is occurring in services with the CIS and Baltic countries. Due to the deterioration in the political situation, passenger numbers on routes to Ukraine fell by more than 77%.

The President of Russian Railways also spoke about the implementation of important investment projects. To date, the Mansky tunnel on the stretch between Abakan - Tayshet on the Krasnoyarsk railway line has been commissioned, as well as the second main line on the stretch between Gniloaksayskaya - Zhutovo on the Privolzhskaya railway line, along with centralised traffic control on the stretch between Petyshki - Nizhny Novgorod on the Gorky railway line and on the stretch between Bataiysk - Salsk on the North Caucasus railway line. The modernisation of passenger arrangements has also been completed at Moscow and Leningrad stations to enable them to handle double-length Sapsan trains. The Company has also upgraded platforms at Khotkovo and Sergiev Posad stations.

Russian Railways is continuing to renew its rolling stock. Since the beginning of the year, the Company has purchased 393 locomotives and 194 motorised multiple units.