Russia-based UWC (www.uniwagon.com), one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of freight cars, will supply the State Transport Leasing Co (STLC) with 20,000 gondola cars (with unloading hatches) by the end of 2022 and 5,000 hopper cars for transporting grain and milled products by the end of 2020.

The freight cars are equipped with a bogie with a 25-tonne axle load, while standard models are mounted on bogies with a 23.5-tonne axle load.

The larger loading capacity provides savings on operating costs, and the ‘overhaul mileage’ of freight cars manufactured at UWC’s Tikhvin plants is up to 1 million km (or eight years) — three-times as long as previous-generation freight cars.

The cars’ guaranteed inspection-free mileage stands at 6,000km (compared with 2,300km for standard models).

According to InfoLine’s Assessment of effects of operating innovative cars for the railway transportation market in Russia, the cumulative benefit to Russia’s GDP from operating rolling stock with an increased loading capacity exceeded RUB 130 billion for the five-year period from 2013 to 2018, and the total additional export volume of coal transported in heavy freight trains alone amounted to 29 million tonnes.