Recently, the China-Europe freight train to the direction of Russia has encountered some problems. Due to the shortage of shunting locomotives and the infrastructure capacity that does not fully match the current traffic volume, rail transport from China to Russia has attracted the attention of the industry.

All current modes of transport use railway resources to varying degrees, but Russian railways are not adequately prepared for such an influx of goods.

Alina Chepurnaya, a railway expert with Novelco, a Russian logistics operator, said that the three main modes of transport from China to Russia currently require railway resources.

First, the seaborne cargo passing through the ports of the Far East needs to enter the railway network at the ports and eventually reach the destination. Second, through the inland railway ports, the whole use of railway. Thirdly, some customers choose road transport solutions, but there are still some remote areas in Russia that are impassable by trucks (e.g. Yakutia region, individual regions of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region), which are laid with tracks and can be reached by rail.

"Goods arriving from ports in the Far East already take up a considerable portion of railway resources. Railway ports do not have enough time to carry out timely reloading of freight volumes in both directions. The westbound shunting locomotives could not return to the port to pick up the new cargo. The current situation is that containers are likely to remain at border crossings for a long time."

"The same problem has arisen in the Far East in the ports of Vladivostok and Nakhodka. Railway trains cannot reach the port in time to carry goods arriving by sea."

"In both cases, it will eventually lead to congestion in the container yard, unable to make room for new containers." The problem is particularly acute for direct rail traffic, where trains arrive with full containers and have to wait for days to unload them."

Another railway logistics expert, Alexander Ankushin, believes that the current accumulation of about 150,000 empty containers in Russian ports and railway crossings is also a big problem. "It is not economical to ship empty containers back to Chinese shippers, and Russian exports do not need so many containers."

The accumulation of empty boxes has also led to the current market price of second-hand boxes in Russia, which is bleak, compared with the $4200 40-foot box in February last year, and the current $600 for a 40-foot box is simply "cabbage price".

Alexander Ankushin believes that the gradually expanding range of Russian exports to China will help solve the problem of excess containers in the long run. The shortage of locomotive resources, the lack of sufficient production and maintenance capacity, but also need policy support and investment to solve.