The version for the print

  • 2013 May 20

    Trans-Siberian Railway in Seven Days

    Russian Railways, TransContainer and VSC have announced the launch of a new regular express container service – Trans-Siberian Railway In Seven Days. Meanwhile, logistic market players think that railway transit from the Far East has no promising prospects.

    Sea vs land

    Russian Railways OJSC jointly with TransContainer OJSC (Russian Railways subsidiary) and Vostochnaya Stevedoring Company LLC (VSC, part of the Global Ports Group) have announced the launch of a new regular express container service – Trans-Siberian Railway In Seven Days. At the moment, the service links the Nakhodka-Vostochnaya station on Far Eastern Railways with the Moscow-Tovarnaya-Paveletskaya station on Moscow Railways.

    The first train with a length of 71 conventional wagons was loaded at the Vostochnaya Stevedoring Company's terminal and shipped from Nakhodka-Vostochnaya on 1 May 2013 to the Moscow-Tovarnaya-Paveletskaya station, where it arrived on 8 May. Total travel time was 7 days. The second train left on 8 May 2013. The express container trains will depart from Nakhodka twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays. The next trains are due to leave on 15 and 17 May. The express ​​container train from Nakhodka-Vostochnaya takes just 7 days to reach Moscow and travels non-stop, bypassing the sorting stations en route. 

    Russian Railways has also developed the schedules for test container trains linking Martsevo with Nakhodka-Vostochnaya and Vladivostok with Perovo.

    Meanwhile, representatives of container market players interviewed by IAA PortNews think that the launch of such services is not to have any impact on conventional routes of maritime container transportation.

    First of all, the cost of delivery is essential here. Experts say that maritime transport is more competitive with such distances. Besides, Baltic ports are at the route being serviced by the fleet with the highest capacity and the lowest container cell cost price. This fleet links South-East Asia with transshipment ports (Rotterdam, Hamburg, Bremerhaven etc.).

    At the same time, containerized cargo imported from China or Korea by Vostochny-Transsib-Moscow railway route can be economically viable for service operator only in case of return load. However only coastal trade cargo is used as return load at Moscow-Far East route as major export manufactories are located not in Moscow but in the North West or Siberia. Besides, global top-10 sea lines do not provide their containers for transportation of coastal trade cargo as they are focused on permanent turnover of containers at sea routes rather than searching for them at warehouses of minor commercial firms in the Far East region.

    So, this route can be competitively serviced only with containers of Russian operators like FESCO and Transcontainer which also have their own flat wagons and discounts for Russian Railways services covering the coastal trade cargo destined for the Far East.

    Besides, as we wrote before >>>>, Transsib capacity does not suggest any significant transit volumes today.

    However, the advantage of Trans-Siberian Railway In Seven Days, apart from the delivery time, is the stability of rates valid for a year, at least. Information about rates changes is to be provided 60 days before introduction of new rates. 

    As Natalya Khan, head of Multimodal Transportation Department of BM-Logistics, commented for IAA PortNews, Transsib’s major advantage against the maritime route is the delivery time. “Compare: for the route via St. Petersburg, transit time to Moscow is some 40-45 for China shipments, which make the core of cargo flows. For the route via the Far East the delivery takes 20-25 to Moscow. Transportation via the Far East is more expensive as compared with that via St. Petersburg. It is the client to decide what is more important: time or price,” Natalya Khan says. 

    “The reduction of delivery time to 7 days is interesting, indeed. The matter is the price, as usual,” the expert sums up.

    To summarize, we can say that the announced railway service is currently interesting only for shipment of small urgent consignments but is cannot change the container logistic market in general. 

    Vitaly Chernov

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