The fact that the repair works of freight railway wagons are conducted at the minimal level of the planned volumes is one of the main reasons for the unsatisfactory technical condition of most freight wagons used on the railways of Ukraine, according to wagon builders, owners of rolling stock and logistics companies.

In a letter sent to the Minister of Infrastructure Vladyslav Krykli and Acting Minister of Infrastructure and a head of “Ukrzaliznytsia” Ivan Yuryk via the Interfax-Ukraine agency they are offering to implement a set of measures in order to change the situation.

The authors of the letter, in particular, propose to prohibit extending the service life of wagons based on the results of depot repair or overhaul, leaving only extensions based on the results of overhauls according to technical conditions (KRP), and at the same time grant the right to conduct KRP only to wagon-building enterprises taking into account their more developed capacities.

In addition, it is proposed to limit the service life of freight wagons after the KRP to five years, and scheduled repairs (depot and overhaul) for wagons with the extended life should be performed twice as often.

The letter highlights that due to the insignificant difference in the costs of maintaining and operating a new freight wagon compared to a wagon with an extended service life, rolling stock operators of all forms of ownership lack economic incentives to renew their own rolling stock, and this stimulates the import of decommissioned wagons from abroad.

“Regulations for conducting planned repairs of wagons with an exhausted regulatory term of operation do not differ significantly from regulations for new wagons. As a result, the daily operation of about 56% of the working fleet holds man-made risks and increases the accident rate, thus the number of unscheduled repairs rises by 5-8 times,” the letter states.

In addition, the signatories of the letter propose to make the control by the State Transport Safety Service over the compliance of scheduled and unscheduled repairs to the established standards more stringent, as well as to eliminate the possibility of acting according to the instructions of certain officials of “Ukrzaliznytsia” who, in violation of the rules, relax the requirements for wagons’ technical condition.

The letter sets the purpose of the developed proposals — to improve, based on the results of the discussion with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Ukrzaliznytsia, the technical aspects of the procedures for extending the service life of freight wagons and refine the rules of operation in order to bring to the standard the current technical condition of wagons with an expired service life, reduce the risks of man-made disasters, increase interest of operators in purchasing new freight wagons of Ukrainian manufacturers.

The letter was signed by the heads of the Kriukiv Wagon Building Plant, JSC Dniprovagonmash, Aurum Group and Diesel Plant, Promvagontrans, TAS-Logistic, Ukrainian Grain Logistics, Louis Dreyfus Company, and First Logistics Company.