With 11 Percent of Its Cargo Cars at Risk of Falling Apart, Russian Rail an Accident Waiting to Happen

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 9 – The Moscow Institute on Natural Monopolies says that 11 percent of the cargo cars on Russian railways – 158,000 – are in bad shape and need immediate repairs, a figure that is almost twice as many as last year, a reflection of the fact that the number being repaired each month fell from nearly 40,000 a month in 2024 to 20,000 per month in 2025.

            Because the number of cars needing repair is so large, the railways now don’t have the reserves they did to replace cars that should be taken offline immediately. And that in turn means accidents are becoming ever more likely (vedomosti.ru/business/articles/2026/04/09/1188967-na-seti-rzhd-viroslo-chislo-neispravnih-gruzovih-vagonov).

            There is little hope for a turnaround anytime soon. Because of reductions in earnings and government subsidies, the number of new cargo wagons coming online to replace the aging ones at risk of accidents was down by almost 50 percent in the first two months of 2026 as compared to the same period a year earlier.

            Many but of course far from all of these problems are a direct result of the Kremlin’s shifting of funding from services like railroads to the needs of the Russian military now fighting in Ukraine.