Cargo, Estonia, Railways, Transport

Spokesperson for Estonian Railways Monika Lilles told BNS that the biggest reason for the decline lies in domestic carriage, as oil shale, the transport volume of which totaled 800,000 tons in the same period last year, has not been transported on the infrastructure of Estonian Railways this year.

The top categories of cargoes transported on the infrastructure of Estonian Railways are fertilizers, mineral fuels and chemical goods.

"Slight improvements were observed in August in both freight carriage volumes as well as in passenger numbers," Lilles told BNS, adding that transit shipments accounted for slightly over 5.8 million tons of the total shipments on the infrastructure of Estonian Railways in the eight months, which is 8% less than during the same period in 2019. 

Container shipments amounted to slightly over 32,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) during the first eight months, marking a decrease of 37% compared with the previous year.

Passengers of local trains numbered slightly over 564,000 in August, which is the best result in the past five months, and about 3.8 million in the eight months, 29% less than during the same period in 2019.