Kazakhstan: The corresponding contract has been signed with the Hubei Provincial Mechanical and Electrical Institute. As stated by TEXOL’s representative, within five months, the Chinese partner is to design the foundry for the manufacture of railway castings.
It is planned to start construction of the industrial workshops of the Atyrau cluster, which has AWF (Atyrau Wagon Factory) as its main facility, in 2025. The foundry is expected to annually produce up to 30,000 t of small- and medium-sized castings, including draft lugs, centre bowls, coupler yokes, axlebox bodies and other components. The foundry will start functioning with an initial 500 employees and purchase major raw materials (steel scrap and ferrous alloys) in Kazakhstan.
TEXOL points out that the project aims at localisation of component manufacture for the needs of AWF, which has launched serial production this year and already built 100 wagons. The facility’s full-scale operation is reportedly planned for early 2027. Shota Abkhazava, head of the TEXOL Group, has previously announced that AWF’s production capacity would reach 8,000 freight cars per year.
