01 may 2012

Plans ambitious but achievable…

At the end of April in Moscow, the scientific and practical conference «Railway engineering: design and development solutions» was help, which was attended also by the leaders of RPM Group. The moderator of the section «Production of infrastructure components and track equipment» at the conference was the Director General of Kaluga Plant Remputmash OJSC Evgeny Yakovlev. Evgeny Kirillovich told the correspondent of the Railway Machines magazine about the work of the section and the challenges faced by RPM Group.

— I’m always happy when it is possible together with the colleagues to discuss the state of the industry. Until recently, the attention given to the field of the construction and maintenance of track machines was insufficient. Now the situation has begun to change. April 20, Vladimir Yakunin signed a five-year contract for the purchase of the railway equipment in the amount of more than 88 billion rubles. It’s a real event! And the parent company, which will arrange the supply, will be Kaluga Plant Remputmash. It’s very symptomatic that the conference takes place after the signing of this agreement.
PRM Group intends to develop cooperation with the world’s manufacturers of the railway equipment. Part of the machines within the contract will be produced in cooperation with other companies. In particular, this refers to such manufacturers as Plasser&Theurer, Geismar, MFL, Linsinger, Disab, Speno. We started negotiations with Tulazheldormash CJSC concerning co-production of two machines. By the way, there is already a contract signed with this company for the supply of ditch & trench machines MKT-500, but already with joint engineering solutions. The same work is being arranged with Tikhvin Railway Car Building Plant CJSC.
Need to note that track machine building and production of the infrastructure elements involves creativity. As part of these forums unexpected ideas arise and arrangements can provide concrete and effective solutions. Therefore I hope that there will be a good constructive dialogue at the conference.

— How far are we behind, or, conversely, leading in the production of the railway equipment in comparison with foreign countries?

— The world of production of railway equipment has undisputed leaders. For example, Plasser&Theurer, that do almost the entire line of the best track equipment. In cooperation with them, we produce a few cars. PRM Group has recently arranged considerable work to upgrade the machines in order to achieve productivity of the imported analogues. There are a number of unique machines that we create on our own.
Updating and improvement of the machinery is a priority for RPM Group, and we made great progress in this area last year.
During the visit to the Kaluga Plant of the representatives of Russian Railways OJSC headed by the Vice-President of Russian Railways OJSC V.I. Vorobyov we introduced three new products: ballast cleaning machine ЩОМ-1200М, automatic tamper ПМА-1М and ballast leveling machine РПБ-01. They are not simply able to compete with the best international models. By the technical and operational characteristics these machines are not only as good as foreign analogues, but even surpass them in some way, with a number of undeniable advantages, and being a good alternative to a similar technique of Western producers.
These are Russian machines created at the Russian enterprise by our designers. They are completely adapted to our conditions and meet the most stringent requirements of railway engineers.

— And do you feel the need for innovative developments?

— Innovative proposals come constantly. However, the railway equipment and technology are conservative. You can not rebuild the entire economy in favor of an innovative idea. To implement them, you need to go through a significant cycle of training, which includes the creation of the project design documentation, requiring varying degrees of approval, testing, etc.
Accordingly, the need is not just for ideas, but for very worthwhile suggestions and resources — money, people, customers who are willing to wait and maintain. One of these innovative ideas that we realize is the creation of ballast cleaning machine with 1600 m?/h capacity. At the moment the most powerful are ЩОМ-1200 (RPM Group) and РМ-2002 (Plasser&Theurer), capable of handling 1200 m3/h.

— RPM Group began to create a system of service maintenance of the equipment, released by its enterprises. What caused such a decision? How is this project implemented?

— Among the main objectives and priorities of the track facilities development, formulated by Russian Railways OJSC, the following are named such as the provision of maintenance service, technical readiness of the entire fleet of railway equipment of Russian Railways OJSC for the necessary uninterrupted operation for the railway infrastructure maintenance.
Implementation of the service maintenance program of track machines for the entire life cycle is one of our main objectives. The «pilot» project of the program will be implemented with the support of the management of Russian Railways OJSC and will allow arranging both modernization of existing service business units of RPM Group, and creating new ones.
We plan to create service network by the end of this year, and since 2013 to go to the full establishment of repair and service centers throughout the network of Russian Railways OJSC, also in the countries of its considerable commercial presence.

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  • Технологический лидер
  • Производитель  «русских» машин
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