United Wagon Company and Ural Mining Group sign a memorandum to supply 5,000 gondola cars

Research and Production Corporation United Wagon Company (UWC) and Ural Mining Group, LLC (UMG), one of the largest non-metallic mining and production enterprises in the Ural Federal District have signed a memorandum to supply 5,000 gondola cars with hatches to UMG at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. The freight cars will be delivered in batches until 2024.

Sergey Mazurkevich, CEO at UMG, LLC: ‘We have been offering a variety of rail shipping services in Russia and CIS states for over a decade now. The company manages a fleet of more than 8,000 freight cars. We are looking to build up a fleet of our own railcars. I am confident that the efficiency of UWC's wagons will reinforce our status as a reliable and important freight forwarding organisation.

The 12-9853 gondola car with hatches is manufactured at the Tikhvin Freight Car Building Plant, which is part of the UWC Rail Group. UWC gondola cars mounted on 25-ton bogies account for 56%, which is more than 91 thousand cars, of the total new generation gondola cars operated in Russia.

The 12-9853 gondola car’s average yearly distance exceeds 117 thousand km, almost a double of that of common models. The maximum distance travelled by the Tikhvin freight car without being uncoupled for minor repairs is over 700 thousand km, a record high for the whole Russian rail transportation sector.

This freight car offers a payload of 75 t and a body volume of 92 m³ and is equipped with 25-ton bogies to accommodate 10% more of freight compared to its counterparts. A standard freight train of 71 Tikhvin gondola cars can carry up to 5,000 more tonnes of coal per year*. The service life of the 12-9853 gondola car is 32 years.

*The calculation uses an average network turnover taken for a route over 28 days.