The Ukrainian Railways joint-stock company (JSC Ukrzaliznytsia) increased the average the average number of grain wagons it loads per day by 12.5% in the first 13 days of August.
Ukrzaliznytsia’s Business Development Director Andrii Riazantsev announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.
According to Riazantsev, Ukrzaliznytsia has loaded an average of 1,581 grain wagons per day this month, compared with 1,405 grain wagons in the same month last year.
He also disclosed the total volume of grain loaded onto wagons.
“Regarding the volume of grain loaded, this figure is 14.6% more – 105,800 tons were loaded in August compared with 92,300 tons in August 2018. This means that every grain wagon carries more grain on average than it did last year, and this is a positive indicator of the use of the rolling stock," he said.
Riazantsev also said that 6,500 more wagons were involved in transportation of grain in July this year, compared with July 2018.
“The average number of grain wagons loaded per day increased by 13.4% or 1,187. We received an additional 22 trains made up of 54 wagons each increases the burden on the infrastructure. This is the result of the excess fleet of grain carriers that has been created on the transport market in recent years, and it creates a number of additional risks. Among them is the problem of throughput capacities of train stations, where grain carriers are left," he said.
In connection with these, the company is calling on grain market operators to use their fleets of rolling stock as efficiently as possible and invest in development of infrastructure for storage and primary processing of grain to ensure that grain wagons are not turned into "warehouses on wheels."
As reported earlier, Ukrzaliznytsia accused cargo owners of creating a “grain paralysis” on approaches to seaports in early August.
