January 15, 2014. Coal shipments through Sverdlovsk Railways (a subsidiary of Russian Railways) dropped by 28.6% in 2013 and amounted to 0.8m tons.

According to the company's press service, the shipments of buildings materials also declined by 11.2% (21.6m tons), those of ferrous metals decreased by 3.6% (10.9 m tons), those of scrap ferrous metals went down by 3.1% (2.7m tons), those of coke fell by 12.1% (1.2m tons), those of cement declined by 1.1% (2.3m tons), those of timber decreased by 6.7% (1.9m tons), those of chemicals and soda decreased by 7.3% (4m tons), and those of grains and flour went down by 67.8% (133,600,000 kg).

All in all, 128m tons of different types of cargo were transported via Sverdlovsk Region last year, which was 0.5% (some 700,000 tons) more than in 2012. The freight rate came to 179.64bn ton-kilometers (which is about the same as in 2012).

Thanks to the active development of enterprises located in the north of Ural Federal District, the share of hydrocarbons in the total shipments volume rose to 27.5% and amounted to 35m tons in 2013.

All in all, the share of 'high-yield' shipments through Sverdlovsk Railways was 68.5m tons in 2013, which was 5.9% (3.8m tons) more than in 2012.