The Ukrainian Railways public joint-stock company (Ukrzaliznytsia) has built the first 1,000 railcars at its own manufacturing facilities this year, the company’s acting Board Chairman Yevhen Kravtsov has announced.
"We plan to increase the company’s fleet by 3,600 railcars this year. Thus far, 1,000 have been built and 450 have been bought from other manufacturers. This is more than half of last year’s result: the company built 2,604 railcars in the entire 2017," Kravtsov wrote on his Facebook page.
According to Ukrzaliznytsia, the largest numbers of gondola cars were built by the Paniutynskyi railcar repair plant (520), the Darnytskyi railcar repair plant (320), and the Stryi railcar plant (160).
Of the 450 gondola cars purchased by the company, 250 were produced by the Kryukov Railcar Building Works and 200 by the Popasna railcar repair plant. According to Ukrzaliznytsia, in total, 3,327 freight cars have already been built in Ukraine in 2018.
As reported, it was announced in early March that Ukrzaliznytsia’s plants had built 625 gondola cars.
In addition to the 3,600 gondola cars it plans to build at its own facilities this this year, Ukrzaliznytsia plans to purchase 3,450 from third-party manufacturers. It also plans to purchase 100 container flatcars and 350-500 grain carriers.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced in April that it planned to sign a deal on purchase of railcars with Ukrzaliznytsia before the end of this year.
