Disposal of worn-out wagons will revive the Ukrainian car building – top manager of UZ

Over the past five years, as a result of the massive import of decommissioned wagons (the so-called “scrap wagons”) from the Russian Federation, the Ukrainian wagon-building industry has practically died.

This opinion was expressed in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine by Valeriy Tkachev, Deputy Director of the Commercial Department of Ukrzaliznytsia, reports Railway Supply magazine.

“The production of wagons in Ukraine was over 50 thousand units per year, then last year only 3200 cars were built (a drop of about 71%). In 2021, in nine months, only 1200 cars were built in general (a drop of about 51%),” he said.

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According to him, machine building and wagon building in Ukraine are dying. “And in the wagon building there are more than 30 thousand employees, about 12 enterprises.

The factories are now on the verge of closing, workers are losing their jobs, and related industries are also stagnating,” Tkachev said. Answering the question about how much funds UZ needs for the rolling stock renewal program, Tkachev said that Ukrzaliznytsia plans to invest about UAH 50 billion in the construction of 22.6 thousand cars within 7 years.

Private owners will purchase 23.25 thousand cars within 7 years, spending 56.6 billion UAH for this. “In general, the program provides for the construction of about 46 thousand cars for 107 billion UAH for seven years,” stated the top manager. According to him, about 14.5 thousand of 46 thousand wagons, are planned to be built at the facilities of Ukrzaliznytsia, while others will be built at private car-building enterprises.

“This program is actually very moderate, various options have been calculated many times, the service life of the wagons has been analyzed so that it is not stressful for all stakeholders of the program. From 3 to 11 thousand cars will be written off and built annually,” Tkachev emphasized.

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