Russia: This was announced by the national operator after a meeting of the Transport Engineering Cooperation Council chaired by the company’s CEO Oleg Belozerov.
According to the publication, the meeting resulted in corresponding agreements with rolling stock manufacturers. “Since the demand for special vehicles is high, the most important factors for us are their price and reliability. It is necessary to find a balance between the technical characteristics of machines and the cost of their purchase and maintenance”, Oleg Belozerov emphasised. The council agreed to further synchronise “programmes for the development and modernisation of machine-building capacities with the long-term needs of Russian Railways (RZD) and the plans of other customers”.
Earlier, two of the largest players, Sinara-Transport Machines and PTK Group, stressed the importance for the industry of stable, long-term orders for track machinery. In his summer interview with ROLLINGSTOCK, Kirill Lipa, CEO of PTK Group’s partner TMH, said that RZD objectively has a high demand for track machinery.
RZD mentions that the current programme for track equipment renewal up to 2035 envisages the purchase of about 10,100 track machines for track overhaul and maintenance, snow removal, and maintenance of railway rights-of-way, and special-purpose cars. However, at the end of 2022, RZD estimated that it would need 9,000 track machines and rail cars for the same period.
