Estonian Railways Jan-Nov freight carriage grows 12% on year

The top categories of cargoes transported on the infrastructure of Estonian Railways were fertilizers, mineral fuels and oil shale. Transit shipments in the first 11 months of 2018 totaled 8.4 mln tons, 25% more than during the same period in 2017, Estonian Railways said.

CEO of Estonian Railways, Erik Laidvee, said that the freight carriage of the 11 months enables to forecast an all in all successful year for the company. "The year 2018 has been significant for us, we have reached an average rise of 9-10% in freight carriage on the infrastructure of Estonian Railways and have also fulfilled our budgetary objectives," Laidvee said.

Container carriage has also seen a constant increase on the company's infrastructure this year, totaling slightly over 48,000 transport equivalent units (TEUs) in 11 months, which is 60% more than in the same period the year before.

Domestic train passengers numbered 641,600 in November. Thus, the number of passengers carried in 11 months was over 7 mln, which is 5% higher than in the same period the year before. International passengers in the 11 months numbered 95,100, that is 3% more than during the same period last year.

"The interest of Russian tourists in Tallinn continues to be high. We have arranged with the state railway company of Russia to extend the trains on the Tallinn-St. Petersburg-Moscow route for the holiday period and have added additional trains to the schedule," Laidvee said. 

(Source: http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/good_for_business/?doc=145889)