Russian Railways and Russian Post have launched the first block train to deliver postal mail along the TransSiberian route. The first train branded “Rossiay” (Russia) consisted of 74 containers with post and commercial LCL cargoes.
It departed the station of Pervaya Rechka in Vladivostok and ran 9,220 km to Ramenskoe in Moscow region covering 1,512 km a day, which is comparable of the peed of a passenger train.
This month, a return postal train is to run from Ramenskoe to Vladivostok. In future, it is planned that the service will be operated on a regular basis.
The service technology developed by Russian Railways makes it possible for platforms to be coupled or uncoupled at major rail stations along the route, such as Khabarovsk, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Tyumen, Yekaterinburg and Kazan.
Containerized mail and cargoes are consolidated and deconsolidated at Russian Railways’ mainline sorting and logistics centers.
The customer of the service is Postal Logistics Company, containers and platforms are supplied by TransContainer, and first and last mile delivery services are rendered by Russian Railways.
Until now, postal mail was delivered across Russia in postal railcars of Russian Posts which were part of 72 long-distance passenger trains.