Polish rail freight grows 2.7% in first 9 months of 2026, longer hauls and intermodal traffic reshape the market

The latest statistics from Poland's Office of Rail Transport (UTK) show that freight operators transported 164.99 million tonnes between January and September, compared with approximately 160.56 million tonnes during the same period in 2025. The increase of 4.43 million tonnes represents the first sustained recovery after several years of contracting freight volumes. Transport performance developed more strongly than tonnage. Freight operators generated 44.26 billion tonne-kilometres, up 6.7% year-on-year, while train movements measured in train-kilometres increased by 5.6% to 61.78 million. These figures point to a change in the composition of traffic rather than simply more goods moving by rail. The average transport distance increased from approximately 258 km to 268 km, meaning that railway operators are handling a growing share of longer-distance movements. Seven consecutive months of growth The year began with another contraction. January volumes fell 9.2% compared with 2025, while February was down 2.7%. The trend reversed in March, when freight volumes increased by 7.7%, followed by positive year-on-year results in every month through September. The second quarter produced 55.74 million tonnes, 5.6% more than a year earlier. Third-quarter volumes rose further to approximately 57.74 million tonnes, an increase of 3.8%. September brought the strongest transport performance of the year so far. Operators carried 19.44 million tonnes, up 4.1%, but generated 5.53 billion tonne-kilometres, an increase of 14.7%. The average distance reached 284 km, compared with 258 km in September 2025. Nevertheless, the recovery has not fully reversed the previous decline. The first nine months of 2026 remained around 1.5 million tonnes below the equivalent period in 2024. Full-year freight tonnage fell from 248.5 million tonnes in 2022 to 231.6 million tonnes in 2023, 223.5 million tonnes in 2024 and 217.8 million tonnes in 2025. Intermodal growth contrasts with conventional freight The clearest evidence of changing freight demand comes from UTK's separate intermodal statistics, currently available through June. During the first half of 2026, intermodal operators transported 16.09 million tonnes, an increase of 20% from 13.41 million tonnes a year earlier. Container volumes reached 1.65 million TEU, up 21%, while intermodal transport performance increased by 21.1% to 5.43 billion tonne-kilometres. A comparison with total freight volumes reveals the scale of this shift. Poland's entire rail freight market grew by approximately 2.29 million tonnes in the first half, while intermodal volumes alone increased by 2.68 million tonnes. This means that non-intermodal freight collectively declined by approximately 0.39 million tonnes, based on the latest UTK figures. Intermodal also accounted for approximately 73% of the increase in total rail freight tonne-kilometres during the period. Its share of all freight carried by rail increased from 12.8% to 15% by mass and from 16.6% to 19.2% by transport performance. Energy commodities rise while mining freight contracts The picture is more complicated within conventional freight. Energy commodities, comprising hard coal, lignite, crude oil and natural gas, remained the largest commodity group by tonnage. Their combined volume increased from approximately 30.4 million tonnes in the first half of 2025 to 32.2 million tonnes in 2026, a gain of almost 1.8 million tonnes. In contrast, metal ores and other mining and quarrying products, a group that includes construction aggregates, declined by 3.6 million tonnes to 25.4 million tonnes, down 12.3%. Their share of total rail freight fell from 27.6% to 23.7%. The contrast suggests that the recovery is not broad-based across traditional bulk cargo markets. Growth in energy commodities and intermodal movements has been sufficient to offset weaker demand in other segments, particularly mining and quarrying products. In the second quarter alone, the energy commodity …