The president of the Kryukov Railcar Building Works (Kremenchug, Poltava region), Volodymyr Prikhodko, has announced plans to enter the Russian market with its Tarpan high-speed trains.
"We are currently trying to enter the Russian market. There are prospects, although there are no purchases yet. We want to jointly produce trains there," Prikhodko said in an interview with the LigaBiznesInform publication.
According to him, a joint venture could be a form of cooperation. "The Russian partner considers it realistic. I cannot name the company," he said.
See also “Taming the Tarpan: How the Ukrainian High-Speed Train Made its Maiden Voyage”
Regarding the prospects for development on the Ukrainian market, Prikhodko said that several important regions – the Lugansk and Donetsk regions, as well as the Crimea, which provided significant passenger traffic – have dropped out of the plans for high-speed rail links. "And those routes remaining are completely packed with Korean and our trains," said Prikhodko.
He also said that the Kryukov Railcar Building Works received at the end of May all the money for the first two Tarpan trains it delivered to the State Railway Administration (Ukrzaliznytsia) and that it is ready to produce more trains as needed. As reported, the Ukrainian the Ukrainian High-Speed Railway Company leased both Tarpan trains from the leasing company Delta Leasing for UAH 400 million.
The Tarpan high-speed trains (formerly known as EKr1) consist of nine railcars. The trains have 609 passenger seats and are capable of reaching speeds of up to 200 km/h. The price of a single Tarpan high-speed train is UAH 200 million. It is cheaper than the nine-wagon Hyundai high-speed trains that Ukraine purchased as part of the preparations for the finals of the 2012 European football championship: one Korean-made Hyundai high-speed train costs USD 30 million.
