In keeping with the Work Plan of the OSJD Commission on Transport Policy and Development Strategy for 2021 that pursues, among others, the topic “Designing measures to facilitate border crossing in international railway transport operations in Eurasia,” the OSJD Committee organized and conducted the 9^th Interagency Conference “Practices in border crossing by rail transport” in Gdansk, Poland, on 21-22 September 2021. The Conference was held as a combined face-to-face/online videoconference event.

The Sever-1435 track measuring light railcar manufactured by the TVEMA Firm JSC (an OSJD affiliated enterprise) was put into operation on the Serbian railway network in August 2021, after receiving a TSI certificate a month earlier.

Serbia plans to invest more than 6 billion Euros in the national rail projects in order to fully complete the modernization of the network and link it with other European countries. This was declared by Prime Minister Ana Brnabic at the ceremony of arrival of the Connecting Europe Express thematic train in Belgrade on 13 September 2021.Since 2014, 600 million Euros have been invested in the country's railway infrastructure, and this mode of transport should become the main one in the carriage of passengers and goods.

PESA Bydgoszcz SA, a Polish railway vehicle manufacturer and an OSJD Affiliated Enterprise, presented Poland’s first hydrogen-powered four-axle shunting locomotive SM42-6Dn at the TRAKO 2021 14^th International Railway Fair in Gdansk, Poland. The locomotive has become a manufactured reality as a result of cooperative efforts by PESA, Polish State Railways JSC (PKP), and PKN Orlen.

Ukrainian Railway JSC (Ukrzaliznytsia) and Deutsche Bahn Engineering & Consulting (DB E&C), which is part of the Deutsche Bahn AG (DB AG), signed an agreement on the provision of consulting services in the field of passenger transportation.

Siemens Mobility has started the delivery of the third batch of Sapsan high-speed electric trains – the first of them arrived by sea on August 9, 2021 from the German port of Lübeck to Saint Petersburg.

The Polish infrastructure operator PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe and the construction company Budimex (Poland) have signed a contract for the design and reconstruction of three stations in the Ełk area, located on the route of the Rail Baltica railway line, which is currently under construction. The project, worth 587 million PLN (128 million euro), is co-financed within the Connecting Europe Facility programme. The work is scheduled to begin in the next 3 months and be completed by the end of 2023.

According to the Xinhua news agency, in 2021 (as of 26 August 2021), over 3,000 freight trains with 291,186 containers ran through the Zabaikalsk-Manchuria and Grodekovo-Suifenhe border crossings on the route to Europe.

In 2020, compared to 2019, the volume of transit container traffic through the Russian Railways network increased by more than one third, from 618 thousand to 831 thousand TEUs, and by the end of seven months of 2021 this figure was equal to 619 thousand TEUs, which exceeds the level of the same period in 2020 by 50%.

The National Development and Reform Commission of China presented the regular progress of work under the Belt and Road Initiative.