The eternal problem with UZ – there are cars, and there is nothing to pull them. We are looking for a solution

On Tuesday, April 18 in Kiev, the conference “Railways of Ukraine. Development and investment “. During the event, the participants discussed the pressing problems of the industry and ways to address them. In particular, they talked about the eternal problems of “Ukrzaliznytsia”, to which, in addition to weak management, the poor quality and quantity of the technical park was added.

Recall that UZ undertook the obligation to repair 9 thousand cars and restoration in 2017, but so far only 162 units of transport have resulted in serviceable condition, which casts doubt on the ability of the enterprise to fulfill the promised. But this is not the essence of the problem. According to representatives of the metallurgical and agro-industrial business, its root lies in the absence of locomotives.

For example, in 2012, the turnover of wagons was 4.5 days, but only four years later it grew to 7 days! And the problem here is not the number of cars. Business is ready to invest in their purchase, but what’s the point, if nothing to pull ?! Accordingly, the only method to reduce the turnover period by 2-3 days (at least until 2012) is to provide a locomotive fleet. Together with this, due to the optimization of the terms, up to 12 thousand wagons will be vacated. If UZ does not take measures, then in autumn at the time of peak loads from agrarians and metallurgists there will be a natural transport collapse.

US will not be able to help General Electric

Fortunately, it seems that the Cabinet of Ministers at least understand the extent of the problem. According to the Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv, a company with a global name General Electric said about the desire to invest in infrastructure projects, in particular, “Ukrzaliznytsia”.

The minister believes that the state has already guaranteed a legal basis for cooperation, international trade and joint production of new rolling stock units. But the problem needs to be solved at the earliest possible date, and the UZ only completed the testing of the locomotive General Electric 4 months ago and did not even disclose the details, saying only that they received a “useful operating experience”.

Therefore, it is too early to talk about deliveries in the foreseeable future, let alone launching a joint production project between the Ukrainian enterprise and General Electric. Yes, and Kubiv held with investors only one meeting on April 11.
In general, if there is no news in the next couple of months, then there is a good chance that the history of the modernization of the rolling stock by GE locomotives will end just like attempts to work with Skoda, Siemens, Bombardier and other manufacturers, that is, nothing.