RPC UWC: the future of railcar building is in specialization and customization

The delegates of Research and Production Corporation “United Wagon Company” (RPC UWC) took part in the VI annual conference “CIS Rolling Stock Market”.

The conference, which key subject was the transformation of freight railcar building market during the crisis was attended by more than 100 representatives of railcar building enterprises, operators of railway rolling stock, freight owners, state authorities and expert community.

Alexander Lukyanenko, Deputy CEO for Sales and Development at RPC UWC noted in his report “Customization of the market: development of the specialization of railway rolling stock” that amid the decline in demand for railcars, as well as the presence of excessive non-core capacities, a customer’s interests and his requirements to railcars’ specifications come to the fore, in particular the requirements to the railway rolling stock’s properties for specific types of freight, to the increase in the loading of a railcar and to significant reduction in transportation costs. A high potential growth, as far as the segment of special-purpose railcars is concerned, is being developed in the market, having said that, the rates of production are still insufficient for the replenishment of a special-purpose railcars’ fleet due to considerable scope of write-offs (up to 60% in the next several years). In the current conditions, RPC UWC intends to significantly extend a portfolio of produced freight railcar models of a new generation, primarily thanks to tank cars for the transportation of chemical freight, platforms for the transportation of timber and metal, as well as to other highly specialized models.

In his report “The arrangements for current uncoupling repair of innovative railway rolling stock: experience, obstacles and prospects” Dmitry Losev, Deputy CEO for Technological Development at RPC UWC dwelled on the results of creating a network of maintenance service of new generation railcars. He pointed out that “Currently more than 30, 000 freight railcars with increased axle load 25 tons are operating on the railway. In order to organize the technical servicing based on railcar depots on the territory of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus RPC UWC has already created 6 training and 50 servicing centers. The work that has been carried out allowed equaling the idle time of new generation railcars’ fleet, during the current uncoupling repair, to the time indicators of repairs conducted with regard to mass models of railcars operating on standard bogies. Having said that, there is a number of obstacles, declining the indicators of new generation freight railcars' operation, and, consequently, total efficiency of hauling on the network. In particular, one of the obstacle is the railcar building enterprises’ lacking the rights to conduct repairs of wheel sets with axle load 25 tons and the shortage of the wheel sets’ turnover stock. The synergetic effectiveness of the operation on the network can be enhanced only through joint efforts of all participants of transportation process”.