UWC to supply timber flat cars to the manufacturer Vitebsk Sawmill

Credit: United Wagon Company

The research and production corporation United Wagon Company (UWC), Russia’s largest manufacturer of freight cars, will deliver a batch of new generation flat cars for the transportation of timber to the Manufacturing Unitary Enterprise, Vitebsk Sawmill (part of the Estonian investment group of companies Kaamos), one of the largest manufacturers and exporters of edged softwood timber in Belarus. The shipment is planned until the end of Q1 2022.

The flat car of the 13-6895 model significantly exceeds its typical analogues due to structural advantages, increased load capacity and increased loading volume: 72.5 tonnes and 158m³, which makes it possible to additionally load up to 30m³ of timber into the car. Increased loading provides savings on the required fleet while maintaining the volume of traffic: the same amount of timber can be shipped on 70 Tikhvin flat cars as on 100 standard flat cars.

The loading length of the timber flat car (60 feet) allows to transport three stacks of timber of six meters each, which ensures convenience and speed of loading and unloading. At the same time, the car remains in the short wheelbase tariff, which significantly reduces the cost of transporting a tonne of cargo compared to its analogues and, thus, increases economic efficiency for the car operator.

According to its characteristics, the UWC flat car is optimally balanced for the transportation of three types of timber that are transported in bulk in the 1,520mm track gauge area.

The flat car is equipped with bogies with axle load of 25 tonne, which provide a mileage of up to one million km (or eight years) against 210,000km (or three years) before the first depot maintenance for cars on the 18-100 bogies and their modifications. The car is designed for a service life of 40 years.

A network of authorised UWC service centres with the necessary turnover of spare parts and components operates for the servicing the rolling stock on its routes in the 1,520mm track gauge area.

Nikolay Vashkilevich, Deputy CEO of the Manufacturing Unitary Enterprise Vitebsk Sawmill said: “Our company supplies products to the Baltic states and western EU countries, actively develops the Asian area. Next year, we plan to launch a new timber mill, which will almost double our production capacity up to 450,000m3 of softwood timber. The tasks of timely raw material supply to manufacturing facilities by rail transport and optimisation of logistics come to the forefront for us. We are sure that the UWC cars will contribute to the fulfillment of these goals.”

UWC has delivered almost 900 timber flat cars with a loading length of 60ft to the market. Currently, every third flat car for timber freight produced since the launch of the TikhvinSpetsMash enterprise at the end of 2016, has been delivered to the network by freight car builders from Tikhvin.