[12] As the law requires carriers to provide service to customers anywhere in Russia, RZD retained its dominant position.

585 established RZD as a joint stock company, making it a holding in charge of 63 subsidiaries, including TransContainer, RailTranAuto, Rail Passenger Directorate, Russian Troika, TransGroup, and Refservis.

[16] On 23 May 2007, Russian Railways adopted a new corporate style which changed fundamentally the way the Company presented itself visually to the outside world.

[19] Strategy 2030, an investment plan to expand and modernize the railway network, was approved by the Russian government in 2008.

[21] Thus, Lisin as Russia's largest operator of rolling stock acquired control of a quarter of the freight market.

[25] According to a Reuters inquiry, RZD procurement activities in 2012 amounted to $22.5 billion; part of this was awarded to private contractors with no genuine operations in de facto noncompetitive tenders.

[26] Some of the company addresses listed on the tenders turned out to be private apartments, car repair shops or department stores.

[26] It was alleged that the contractors were actually shell companies, used to convey billions of dollars in tenders to close associates of Yakunin, president of RZD.

[28] Far East Land Bridge, a company partnered with a Russian Railways subsidiary, was also linked to Yakunin's son.

[29] On 16 October 2012, Russian Railways has completed competitive negotiations with potential buyers of the remaining 25-percent plus 1 share stake in JSC Freight One.

[30] In early November 2012, Russian Railways announced the purchase of 75% of the French logistics company Gefco SA.

The total value of the transaction was 800 million euros, the seller being PSA Peugeot Citroen, the parent company of Gefco.

[33] In August 2015, company president Vladimir Yakunin was dismissed,[34] allegedly because of poor performance and mismanagement.

[36] The Moscow Central Circle railway, designed and managed by Roszheldorproject, an RZD subsidiary, opened in September 2016.

[39] On 11 April 2022, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters reported that the International Swaps and Derivatives Association had determined a "failure to pay" credit event occurred on 250 million CHF worth of Swiss franc loan participation notes linked to an entity related to Russian Railways, RZD Capital.

[40][41] In December 2023 the joint venture with the VR Group, Finnish Railways, to run the Karelian Trains ceased, the trains having stopped running in March 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Russian Railways having failed to meet their portion of the financing obligations, VR Group assumed the whole financial obligations and took over the rolling stock.

The project design of the largest container port in Ust-Luga for reception and distribution of containerized freight on China–Europe route is also part of the program.

[43] In March 2015, at a meeting of the Russian Academy of Science, Vladimir Yakunin presented an ambitious new transport route called the Trans-Eurasian Belt Development (TEPR) which would go "through Russia with a mega road and high-speed rail network to link Asia with Europe' and with the opportunity to go to Chukotka and Bering Strait and then to the American continent"[44] to Alaska, "making overland trips from Britain to the US (via the Channel Tunnel) a possibility.

[25] Some passenger categories, such as pensioners, members of parliament, and holders of Soviet and Russian state decorations, receive free or subsidized tickets.

[61] The long-distance rail passenger business is under increasing competition from airlines, due to their aggressive domestic pricing policies and generally shorter travel times for routes under 1,000 km.

[64] The second train, Allegro, has run from Saint Petersburg to Helsinki via Vyborg since December 2010 and is owned and operated together with the Finnish VR Group.

Sapsan was the most successful passenger train of JSC Russian Railways with occupancy rate of 84.5% (according to RZD in 2010) and profitability of 30% (although capital costs were not included in its calculation).

According to the JSC Russian Railways statement, the passenger transportation – except for some highly profitable directions – is unprofitable.

[66] As of 2016, there are 25 suburban passenger companies (SPC), and Russian Railways owns a majority stake in 19 of them.

[citation needed] The length of lines equipped with automatic block (AB) and centralized control, is 62,055 km, or 72.9%.

[82] Loading volume for the year 2012 amounted to 1 billion 274.7 million tons (+2.7% compared to 2011), the share in the total turnover of the country (except pipelines) — 85.5%.