Ukrzaliznytsia has discussed the future of low-activity grain loading stations with market participants and the European Business Association (EBA). The parties determined ways to optimize the structure of grain cargo logistics.
According to Ukrzaliznytsia, the company’s specialists analyzed the operations of 528 grain loading stations and established that 328 of them handled about 6% of the total grain cargo (only up to two grain wagons are loaded at these stations per day), but their maintenance requires significant expenditures and large numbers of traction equipment, which are in short supply.
After considering all opinions on the 177 low-traffic grain-loading stations, the operations of which Ukrzaliznytsia experts believe should be optimized, a decision was made to retain the 99 stations on which all the grain-market participants agreed.
According to Ukrzaliznytsia, the grain-market participants agreed that 27 stations should be closed completely. They also agreed that 41 should be closed from July to December 2018 and subsequently restored if there are applications for loading/unloading of an average of five cars per day for at least three months.
In addition, 24 stations will be closed from July to December 2018 and subsequently restored if there are applications for loading/unloading of an average of 10 railcars per day for a period of at least six months.
Seven stations that are either unprofitable or have insufficient capacity utilization will be given the opportunity to increase the average daily loading of railcars over a period of a few months and begin operating without losses.
