OREANDA-NEWS. October 20, 2011. Between January and September 2011, the volume of international freight traffic between Russia and the Baltic countries rose to 49.3 million tons, an increase of 5.5%. Export shipments amounted to 42.6 million tons, an increase of 2.2%, import shipments to 2.7 million tons, up 78.9%, and transit goods to 4 million tons, a rise of 14.3%, reported the press-centre of Russian Railways.

The volume of international container traffic between Russia and the Baltic states from January to September 2011 amounted to 1,093,000 tons, up 21.3% over the same period last year.

The amount of freight exported by container increased 2.3 times to 65,900 tons, while the imported container shipments rose 64.4% to 322,300 tons. Transit freight sent by container was up 4.1% and amounted to 705,100 tons.

Since May 2003, container train No. 1418 "Baltica - Transit" has been in service. The train departs from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia for the CIS countries and travels via Russia.

It takes the train 2 days 23 hours 47 minutes to traverse Russia’s rail network from Zilupe station, the border crossing with Latvia, to Ozinki station, the border crossing with Kazakhstan, which is a total distance of 2,047km.

The flat wagons used in the train are owned by the railways of the Baltic States and are part of their fleet. The "Baltic - Transit" is a pick-up goods train which includes both flat wagons and boxcars and is operated by FESCO Integrated Transport.

In accordance with an agreement between the Russian government and NATO, in February 2009 TransContainer organised container train services from Latvian Railways’ Riga-Krasta station to Galaba station of Uzbek Railways, with transit cargo being shipped in large, heavy-duty containers destined for Afghanistan. The train runs on the same timetable as the "Baltic - Transit."

On the same route, 111 container trains carrying 12,454 Twenty-Foot Equivalent containers (TEUs) ran during the first 9 months of 2011, 25% fewer than during the same period in 2010.

On 22 and 23 June 2011, a working meeting of experts from Lithuanian Railways, Russian Railways and Belarusian Railways met in Vilnius to discuss the organisation of the "Mercury" container train between Klaipeda - Kaliningrad - Moscow.

The three sides noted the trend to steady growth in freight container shipments to Russia via the port of Klaipeda. It was therefore decided to organise test runs of the "Mercury" container train on this route in order to attract freight from road to rail.

In March 2011, the first specialised container train completed a run between Muuga and Kuntsevo-2 and carried a freight shipment from China to the company Leroy Merlin in Russia.

In the first seven months of 2011, five trains ran from Muuga Station to Moscow-Tovarnaya Station, Kuntsevo-2, carrying 552 TEUs, while three trains with 345 TEUs travelled in the opposite direction during the same period.