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 group accounted for 15.28 million tonnes, followed closely by ores and mining products at 14.86 million tonnes. Coke, petroleum refining products and related commodities contributed another 7.21 million tonnes.
The composition of traffic also helps explain why tonne-kilometres are growing faster than volumes. In the second quarter, the average transport distance for energy commodities was approximately 151 km, compared with 396 km for coke and petroleum refining products.
PKP Cargo remains the largest operator
Despite its ongoing restructuring, PKP Cargo retained the largest share of the Polish freight market during January—September 2026, carrying 26.2% of total tonnage and accounting for 26.7% of tonne-kilometres.
DB Cargo Polska ranked second by tonnage with 14.6%, although its share of transport performance was considerably lower at 5.2%. Orlen Kolej showed the opposite pattern, accounting for 7.8% of tonnage but 11.8% of tonne-kilometres.
The difference illustrates the varied operating profiles of Poland’s freight carriers. Operators with a high share of tonnage but a relatively low share of tonne-kilometres are concentrated more heavily in shorter-distance movements, while those with a higher share of transport performance handle longer average hauls.
In the intermodal segment, PCC Intermodal held the largest share by tonnage in the first half of 2026, at 19.7%, followed by PKP Cargo at 18.9%, DB Cargo Polska at 10.3% and Metrans Rail at 6%.
Freight punctuality deteriorates
The improvement in freight volumes has not been accompanied by better operational punctuality.
During the first quarter, 50.2% of freight trains arrived within the 15-minute-and-59-second punctuality threshold. The figure slipped to 50% in the second quarter, compared with 56.1% in the corresponding period of 2025.
June was particularly weak, with only 47.7% of freight trains arriving within the threshold. UTK recorded 99,483 freight train movements in the second quarter, of which 49,781 arrived at least 16 minutes late.
Source: https://railmarket.com/
