Delivery of grain by rail to Odesa ports decreased due to bad weather

Heavy rainfall and frost in Odesa slowed down the railroad significantly, with grain deliveries to ports almost halved. As a result, more than 9,000 railcars have been piled up, and the average daily load has dropped to 80,000 tons.

This was reported by Elevatorist.com with reference to Valeriy Tkachev, Deputy Director of the Department of Transportation Technology and Commercial Work of Ukrzaliznytsia JSC.

According to him, due to unfavorable weather conditions, the volume of grain train deliveries to Odesa ports was halved.

In addition, over the past three days, Odesa and the access roads to the city have been affected by heavy rainfall, followed by frost. This caused icing on the overhead power lines and the fall of trees, which almost paralyzed electric transportation.

Today, about 23 trains are planned to be brought to the ports, while previously 40-45 trains were brought daily, which is almost half as many," Tkachev said.

The weather complications have also increased the stock of grain carriers at the stations to 9,362 cars, which is a thousand more than in the last three days. At the same time, due to delays, grain is not being delivered to ports in full, so the average daily load on the railroad network is decreasing.

As of January 29, it stood at 80.4 thousand tons, while on January 27 it reached a record high of almost 119 thousand tons, the highest result of the month.

The weather in Odesa is currently stabilizing, power engineers and railroad workers are working to eliminate the effects of the bad weather, and full traffic is expected to resume within 1-2 days.

Ukraine's sea corridor is functioning and remains a key export route despite regular Russian attacks on Odesa region ports, which currently remain the only route for sea transportation.

Since its launch in September 2023, the corridor has transported a total of 168.9 million tons of cargo, including 100 million tons of grain. In 2025 alone, the sea corridor has already transported 73.2 million tons of cargo, including 38.1 million tons of grain.

Анна Бальчінос