It is reported that Russian Railways has released its freight figures recently for 2009. Due to the global economic situation the nationalized company reports that tonnages hauled were down by 15% YoY at 1.1082 billion tonnes handled.

RZD states that the falls in tonnages were in line with the production slump in Russian industry and the subsequent contraction in demand for rail services. However, RZD also states that it considers the fall much better than it could have been and directly attributes this to the anti-crisis program the company had implemented in cooperation with the Russian government.

The freight breakdown shows that bulk commodities make up the vast majority of the products hauled by Russian rail freight throughout the year, with coal, oil and chemical products and iron ore being the most common loads.

RZD had previously reported that their figures for December 2009 had shown an increase of 11.4% over the same month in 2008, which has been taken as an extremely positive sign of a bounce back in the Russian economy.

(Sourced from http://eng.rzd.ru/)