TVSZ launches production of 80-ft flat car for large-capacity containers

Tikhvin Freight Car Building Plant (TVSZ, a subsidiary of the railcar holding company RPC “United Wagon Company”) has been certified by Register of Certification on the Federal Railway Transport to produce a new generation flat car for shipment of large-capacity containers and tank containers with a loading length of 80 feet.

The long-wheelbase container flat car (Model 13-6903) with an increased payload capacity of 74.5 t is designed to carry large-capacity universal, specialized and refrigerator containers of 20, 30 or 40 feet long with a gross weight of up to 36 t. The flat car is equipped with reinforced swiveling and fixed container fitting lugs, their number sufficient to fasten containers in different combinations so as to allow the owner of the flat car to maximize the efficiency of the fleet operation.

TVSZ’s line used to assemble the flat car employs automatic and robotic welding of load-bearing structure elements and allows to perform nondestructive testing. The flat car successfully passed collision tests being loaded with two containers with a gross weight of up to 40 tons each. The design of this freight car ensures high fatigue strength all over its service life, which is as long as 32 years.

The container flat car is mounted on an innovative bogie with 25 ton-force axle load. Its run between repairs is 800 000 km (or 8 years), which reduces by several times the number of repairs compared to standard rolling stock. The maintenance of new generation freight cars is performed by more than 55 servicing centers established by UWC on the CIS railway network.

According to market experts, the demand for container flat cars has been growing for the last several years as there is a strong global tendency for containerization, and the imports to the Russian Federation are recovering. In the first quarter of 2017, Russia increased its non-CIS imports by almost a quarter compared to the same period last year.