September 3, 2024:
Russian railroads are at the point of collapse. This process began before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The covid-19 pandemic disrupted ball bearing production worldwide. When production was back to normal, there were problems providing customers with all the ball bearings they requested. Another problem is that Russia has always imported most of its ball bearings, usually from American and West European manufacturers.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, most western suppliers of ball bearings ceased filling Russian orders. This caused a major shortage of the things in Russia as it was in the process of shifting all of its trains to relatively new coil bearings, none of which were produced in Russia. Since ball bearings are used in automotive equipment, which includes tanks and other armored vehicles, these vehicles received priority because Russia needed weapons for its troops in Ukraine. This was a higher priority that supplying Russian railroads. This ball bearing shortage for Russia’s state owned and operated railroads has, in the last few years gradually reduced service. By 2024 the Russian railroads were much less capable of moving people or freight over the vast Russian railroad system. These disruptions were also felt by essential long-distance routes like the Trans-Siberian line. The net result of all this is a sharp reduction the ability of the Russian military to move men, weapons, equipment and supplies by rail. Trucks, canal boats, high seas shipping and airfreight could not make up for the loss of railroad capacity even if they had enough ball bearings, but they don’t because they now suffer from ball bearing shortages too.
Meanwhile, the railroad situation in sanctions free Ukraine is not ideal. One of the transportation difficulties between Ukraine and the NATO countries is the different gauge railroads used in Europe and Ukraine. Europe uses what is known as Standard Gauge. Gauge means the distance between the two rails. Standard gauge rails are 1,455mm apart. The Russian gauge is wider with the rails 1,524mm apart. In other words, Standard gauge tracks are four feet 8.5 inches wide while Russian Gauge tracks are five feet wide. Since Ukraine was until 1991 part of the Soviet Union, all the Ukrainian railroads are Russian gauge. To deal with this problem, Ukraine is building a transshipment point in the west Ukraine town of Uzhhorod which is on the border with Slovakia and near the Hungarian border. Here there are cranes that will quickly lift standard cargo containers from Russian gauge flatcars and load the containers onto European Standard Gauge flatcars. Passenger trains have a similar arrangement where passengers can disembark and walk a short distance to trains with a different gauge.
Until the Ukrainian military drove the Russian Black Sea Fleet away from the west coast of the Black Sea in 2023, the main Ukrainian port of Odessa was unsafe for commercial shipping. Now the Black Sea route from Odessa to the world is open, via the Turkish Bosphorus strait. Before that the best way out was via rail, and that required a transshipment facility where cargo could be transferred between rail cars using different rail gauges.
Ukraine plans to build some European Gauge rail lines to major transportation centers in several Ukrainian cities. Eventually Ukraine wants to convert all its major rail lines to Standard gauge. This will make it easier to handle trade with Europe and, if there’s another war with Russia, the Russians will not have all those Russian gauge rail lines available to quickly move troops and supplies into Ukraine on Russian gauge railroads. Instead, the Russians will have to use roads or capture Ukrainian railroad engines along with passenger, cargo, and flatcars so they can use Ukrainian European Standard gauge railroads.
Converting Ukrainian rail lines from Russian to European gauge is not only necessary economically, but also militarily to deter the Russians from invading again, or cripple their logistics if they do.