[2] JSC Russian Railways has a near-monopoly on long-distance train travel in Russia, with a 98.6% market share in 2017.

Since Russia's population density is also much lower than that of China and the United States, the Russian railways carry freight and passengers over very long distances, often through vast, nearly barren land.

It is one of the most freight-dominant railways in the world, after only Canada, the United States, and Estonia in the ratio of freight ton-kilometers to passenger-kilometers.

The Russian railways were a collection of mostly privately owned and operated companies during most of the 19th century, though many had been constructed with heavy government involvement and financing.

With the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the Russian Federation was left with three-fifths of the railway track of the Union as well as nine-tenths of the highway mileage – though only two-fifths of the port capacity.

In the 21st century, substantial changes in the Russian railways have been discussed and implemented in the context of two government reform documents: Decree No.

384 of 18 May 2001 of the Government of the Russian Federation, "A Program for Structural Reform of Railway Transport", and Order No.

In 2009 Russia had 128,000 kilometers of common-carrier railway line, of which about half is electrified and carries most of the traffic, over 40% was double track or better.

[17] In 1980, about two-thirds of their freight flowed to and from the common-carrier railroads while the remaining third was internal transport only on an industrial railways.

[18] (For example, a lumber company uses its private industrial railways to transport logs from a forest to its sawmill.)

[24] Trans-Eurasia Logistics is a joint venture with RZD that operates container freight trains between Germany and China via Russia.