Currently, a project for organizing the transportation of perishable freights by “Cold Express” trains is under development, which is a new transport product aimed at delivering food, agricultural raw materials and other highly profitable goods to cities where regular container trains are impractical. The article discusses the economic efficiency of the investment project for organizing the transportation of freights in regular refrigerated container trains on the example of the Vladivostok—Moscow—St. Petersburg route, taking into account the arrangement of at least 18 container sites capable of handling transit container trains. Transportation according to the “Cold Express” concept involves the delivery of freights on the Vladivostok— Moscow—St. Petersburg route to associated large cities by container train loaded with refrigerated and insulated containers, according to a developed schedule with a known arrival and departure time. Capacity of the freight transportation market on the pilot route of the “Cold Express” is 2.0 million tons with the development of transportation in both directions when reaching the design capacity. Freight traffic will be formed by 23 stops on the route, 2 port hubs, 2 border land crossings with a traffic size of 7 pairs of trains per week. As part of the project, an assessment was made of the need for the local reconstruction of passing stations and equipping them with new ones or refurbishing existing container terminals. At the same time, the commissioning of these terminals is supposed to be gradual within 7 years of the project, which also allows gradually increasing the freight base and improving the quality of transportation. The article presents the results of calculations of the commercial efficiency of the project for the Russian Railways as the owner of the infrastructure, carrier and operator of these container terminals, which show its high prospects. Even with an incomplete train load predicted due to uneven density of freight traffic, the net discounted payback period is 10 years.

An approach to the selection of locations for compact container sites at railway stations of main railway lines for carrying out freight operations with transit container trains is described on the example of an investment project of the JSC “Russian Railways” for organizing transportation by “Cold Express” trains. To ensure the possibility of organizing the motion of container freight trains with its reception at the station directly to the loading and unloading front, certain conditions listed in the article must be met. The approach is based on the principle of minimizing costs and maintaining the operational parameters of the reconstructed railway stations while implementing the principles of container logistics. It was concluded that the reference railway station for placing on it a container terminal specializing in handling container transport trains (including “Cold Express” trains) should be a station that has a little-used electrified receiving-departure track with a length of at least 1050 m, for which there is the possibility of receiving and departure trains in all directions and near which there is an open freight area with a hard surface with the possibility of approaching trucks. Also, conditions for the unimpeded operation of loading equipment should be ensured, i. e. there should be no obstacles in the form of pedestrian bridges and overhead catenary supports. On the pilot route Vladivostok—Moscow—St. Petersburg, 18 stations were selected, located in large cities or tend towards large cities. The analysis showed that in real conditions there are no stations that fully meet these criteria, from which it was concluded that it was necessary to carry out capital-intensive measures of various volumes associated with the achievement of the necessary parameters of the stations, such as electrification or lengthening of the track, reconstruction of the station necks, arrangement of the site, car entrances, as well as other measures.

Статья описывает проблему обеспечения выполнения грузовых операций на электрифицированном приёмо-отправочном пути грузового терминала. Учитывая зарубежный опыт Германии, Японии и Южной Кореи, предложен ряд мероприятий для осуществления грузовых операций без отцепки вагонов от состава. На основании теоретического исследования выделяются и описываются характерные особенности предложенных мероприятий. Исследование может быть полезно при выборе технико-технологических решений при организации ускоренных железнодорожных грузовых перевозок.

The article describes the problem of ensuring the performance of cargo operations on the electrified receiving and sending route of a cargo terminal. The relevance of this article is determined by the need to provide new services in the field of freight transport and the lack of implementation of the described technological solutions on the railway infrastructure of the Russian Federation. The authors suggest ways to reduce the time spent on the road for a certain category of cargo by running freight trains of constant formation. The article also describes the main advantages of the proposed solutions, as well as constraints, which include the lack of possibility of carrying out loading and unloading operations with containers on the electrified path of the logistics terminal. The authors studied the foreign experience of applying technical and technological solutions to solve the described problem (in Germany, Japan and South Korea). The authors identify and describe the characteristic features of the proposed measures based on the theoretical research. The article describes several possible options for implementing measures taking into account various features, and also suggests two most likely options for equipping railway stations or using rolling stock. The article can be useful when choosing technical and technological solutions for the organization of accelerated railway freight transport on the railway infrastructure of the Russian Federation, taking into account the local characteristics of stations.