OREANDA-NEWS. July 31, 2014. In the first six months of 2014, the Russian Railways' network carried 56,957 trains loaded with 6,000 to 8,050 tons of freight and 2,298 trains weighing more than 8,050 tons, which is almost 2 times more than during the same period in 2013. In addition, during this period, Russian Railways ran 14,471 coupled trains, 16.2% more than during January-June last year.

Steady growth in transport volumes to ports at a time, when over 5,000 kilometres of track lack sufficient throughput capacity, requires additional measures to increase the weight of freight shipped on these routes.

In recent years, Russian Railways has therefore focused special attention on developing handling areas for heavy trains. This has made it possible to organise the regular movement of trains weighing 8-9 tons, thereby achieving an annual increase in the average train weight, which has risen by 500 tons in the last 10 years.

In this year's timetable, more than 200 timetabled "heavyweights" are scheduled, 20% more than in 2013.

Another option for solving the problem of increasing the carrying capacity of the routes is to apply technology for forming and driving connected freight trains, that is, two or more trains coupled with locomotives.

A significant increase in the average train weight is also being achieved by using innovative wagons with an axle load of 25 tons per axle, 1.5 tons more than the 23.5 tons of axle load currently used by the majority of the Company's freight wagons. While maintaining the standard train length of 71 conventional wagons, it has become possible to transport additional freight volumes, which will in turn make for savings on additional infrastructure investments. Currently, more than 6,000 of these wagons are operating on the network of Russian Railways.