Russia’s Federal Railway Agency (Roszheldor) has proposed allowing extension of the service lives of freight cars 1.5-fold to nearly 50 years in some cases, the Kommersant publication writes.

The agency proposes to radically change the criteria for extending the service lives of freight cars, using as the basis the maximum mileage of cars after the first overhaul, which is usually performed after they reach half of their service lives (the average service life is 22 years for gondola cars and 32 for tank cars). Roszheldor set the standard mileages at 2 million kilometers for gondola cars, 2.2 million kilometers for tank cars, and 900,000 kilometers for flatcars and established that the service life of a railcar should be extended by no more than half of the service life designated by its manufacturer. In addition, the agency established that railcars for which permission is granted to extend their service lives must undergo certification.

Roszheldor has presented its concept to the Russian Ministry of Industry, where a meeting was held with railcar manufacturers last week. According to a source familiar with the discussions at the meeting, railcar manufacturers did not take the concept seriously "because of numerous contradictions."

"If we consider that the first overhaul of a gondola car is performed only after 11 years, it will cover a distance of 2 million kilometers in 27 years, and then the service life of the car will be extended by another 11 years, and its overall service life can reach 49 years," the RM Rail railcar manufacturing company said in a letter. Another railcar manufacturer, KTZ, said that the calculation of the mileage should begin from the first day of operation of a railcar and that the maximum period of extension of its service life should not exceed five years.

A representative of the Stakhanov railcar plant said that any extension of the service lives of railcars would deal a blow to railcar sales. A representative of the Kryukovka railcar plant said that plant was ready to switch completely to