The railway accident which took place in Irkutsk region (in January 2013), on the Trans-Siberian line, determined the authorities in charge to take drastic measures as regards the lifecycle of wagons. Immediately after the preliminary results of the investigation, the Russian Federal Service for Transport Supervision, Rostransnadzor, prohibited the lifetime extension of moulded parts in wagon bogies, an idea which was also supported by the Minister of Industry and Trade, Denis Manturov.
To prevent the reuse of faulty components, in case of products with expired lifetime, the authorities excluded the possibility of their commissioning, and for this purpose, the authorities requested to the Russian Railways to inform rolling stock owners and car fleet repair and maintenance companies.
The reaction of the rolling stock owners was not delayed, since they announced that they are not willing to quickly apply this regulation. “The Council of the Market of Rolling Stock Operators offers to implement a gradual ban on extension of wagons’ lifetime, it is written in the letters by Dmitry Korolyov, Executive Director of the partnership to Vladimir Chepets, Acting Head of the Federal Agency for Railway Transport (Roszheldor) and Alexey Tsydenov, Deputy Transport Minister.
In Russia, the standard lifetime of an open wagon is 22 years, that of a tank wagon is 32 years, and that of a wagon for grain transportation is 30 years. By repairing their wagons, rolling stock owners can extend their lifetime by 50% two times, the maximum lifetime of an open wagon can be extended to 44 years.
According to the rzd-partner.com publication, “wagon builders and RZD asked to ban extension of wagon lifetime because of derailments, which have become more and more frequent. The Transport Ministry offers to limit wagon lifetime by one or two terms to load RZD’s network”.
The Council of the Market of Rolling Stock Operators announced that it will remove wagons from the network when they achieve some definite age, the terms and maximum age are being subsequently discussed, said Valery Shpakov, CEO of Novaya Perevozochnaya Kompaniya (New Forwarding Company, a member of the Council). The extension of special wagons’ lifetime (wagons for heavy and oversized cargo, for refrigerated cargo) should not be banned, because these types of rolling stock are practically not produced in Russia, says Shpakov.
As regards the measure of banning the extension of wagons’ lifetime, Freight One, announced its objection, because the economy is more likely to lose from these new standards than to win: the initiative of wagon builders will cause a 30% decline in the revenue of all private operators, and part of them can even leave the market, the “Vedomosti” newspaper mentions.
As regards the matter of manufacturing the wagons, the builders must execute the rolling stock by means of a modern technology which should comply with transport needs. “If all market players do not follow the coordinated transportation technology on Russian Railways’ network, wagon idling is inevitable and wagons will disappear from the routed where the transport market can develop”, declared Semyon Rezer, President of non-commercial partnership Guild of Freight Forwarders.
In terms of costs of the rolling stock, according to the market players, the prices for the open wagons have decreased by 20-25% on average because of the decline in demand. Railway operators, which purchased wagons in 2012, mentioned that the approximate price is RUB 2-2.25 Million (EUR 49.6 Thousand – EUR 55.8 Thousand), excluding VAT, writes rzd-partner.com. Specialists of Freight One declare that there are offers to buy an open wagon for RUB 1.6 Million (approximately EUR 40 Million) in the market, while a year ago similar models amounted to RUB 2.3 Million (EUR 57 Thousand).
Likewise, due to the decline in demand of wagons, Uralvagonzavod (UVZ) builder could reduce its production by 26% this year, declared the head of the company, Oleg Sienko. Within the conference held by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the participants have debated the matter of the wagon production influenced by the demand in the market. According to the head of UVZ, this would have a negative impact on the production of open wagons.
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