The State Railway Administration (Ukrzaliznytsia) has prepared grain carriers and freight stations for transportation of grain. Currently, railways are ready to transport at least 3 million tons of grain and grain crops per month. The 166,000 grain cars that were loaded in the first five months of 2015 transported 10.7 million tons of grain cargoes. The volume of grain loaded is now 14.6% more than the volume that was loaded in the corresponding period of last year, the press service of Ukrzaliznytsia reports.
Railways prepared for transportation of grain in 2015. In particular, they increased the operating fleet of grain carriers, reduced the turnover of empty and loaded cars, and increased the volumes of transportation of grain on direct routes. They plan to increase the volume of transportation of grain with direct transshipment onto ships to 46%.
"Ukrzaliznytsia's existing grain fleet is quite sufficient to meet all the grain transport needs. The only problem that is creating a shortage of rolling stock is the lack of a loading plan from grain traders. For example, the problems related to export planning are repeated from year to year: there are practically no orders at the beginning of the month while there are excessive numbers of orders in the second half of the month. In addition, uneven loading on weekends and holidays is being observed," the press service said.
As reported earlier, Ukrzaliznytsia is the owner and operator of the largest fleet of grain carriers in Ukraine, which consists of 11,700 cars. Private Ukrainian companies own an additional 1,900 grain carriers. This is sufficient for annual transportation of about 40 million tons of grain and grain cargoes.
