With most of Russia's rapidly growing auto market situated in the western portion of the country, Japanese automakers like Mazda have had to work out the logistics of shipping their cars to the other end of the Eurasian continent. Where boats sufficed in the past, Mazda is foraging a new path, this time using the famous Trans-Siberian Railroad.
Until now, Mazda got cars to Western Russia by shipping them by boat to Germany, then again by boat to Finland, then over land to Russia. This seems convoluted, given that Japan isn't far from Russia's eastern borders, but until now, there hasn't been a good way of getting large numbers of cars thousands of miles across the largest country on Earth.
For this reason, Mazda began testing the possibility of shipping via the Trans-Siberian Railroad last September. After hundreds of tests and construction of some new terminals along the way, Mazda has announced they're ready to begin shipping via the railway. They will be the first manufacturer ever to regularly use the 5,791-mile rail line.
Mazda hopes to ship 9,000 vehicles via the Trans-Siberian Railroad next year to meet the huge demand for Mazdas in Russia, which is up 83% from 2007 during the first eight months of this year. The company will continue to ship cars by sea to Eastern Europe as well to meet the full demand, but utilizing the railroad should take 30 days off the delivery time for Russian customers. The rail service will only take 10 days to move cars from Eastern Russia to Moscow. 30 special railroad cars will move Mazda3s at first, and possibly CX-7s and CX-9s later.
