The Ukrainian Railways public joint-stock company (Ukrzaliznytsia) intends to solve the problem of shortage of grain cars by building grain cars from old cement cars. Ukrzaliznytsia’s Board Chairman Wojciech Balczun announced this in an interview with the Ukrinform news agency, the CFTS reports.
"We will invest huge amounts of money. There will be 9,000 new freight cars and 1,070 grain carriers, which will be converted from cement cars. Consequently, we will have additional grain cars for first the time since 1993. This does not compare with last year: we bought 28 cars last year, we will buy 1,000 this year, and buy 9,000 next year," said Balczun.
"Technologically, cement and grain carriers are quite identical. The only issue is that out of the 4,800 cement cars owned by the state, more than 45% are more than 25 years old, which says a lot about their technical conditions," said Andrew Shkliar, the head of the analytical department of CFTS Consulting.
As the CFTS earlier reported, Ukrzaliznytsia plans to buy almost 9,000 freight cars in 2017. According to the company’s draft financial plan, the company plans to buy 5,890 freight cars with a loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and build 3,000 at its own facilities. As reported, the company previously announced plans to buy 6,600 gondola cars.
