Ukrainian Railroads maintain infrastructure in proper condition

Ukrainian Railroads Ukrzaliznitsia (UZ) maintains proper technical state of the rail infrastructure to ensure safety and performance of trains, the Information-Analytical Bulletin of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine informs.

UZ has planned repair and upgrading of over 1,100 km of train tracks in 2014. 440 km of railroad bed will undergo major repair, 350 km – medium repair, and 440 km of tracks will be upgraded.

To date, UZ has implemented and successfully applied cost-effective and efficient track repair technologies. Track repair activities will be carried out with new track structure members, using high-performance track equipment, which greatly improves the quality and reliability of works.

The important thing to note is that UZ carries out all repair works at its own expense, without any assistance from the state budget. Thus, UZ spent over 3 billion UAH in 2013 to purchase materials for railroad bed repair. It should be emphasized that almost all of the purchased materials are domestic production. According to experts, the required annual funding for the purchase of repair materials is about 8-9 billion UAH. And the total cost of the required scope of work to repair the track superstructure is 6.2 billion UAH annually. Further financing in sufficient amounts is essential to maintain the trains speed and perform all repairs on time. Thus, the estimated construction cost of 1 km track is 10 million UAH. And to meet the frequency of maintenance and to increase roach capacity, about 800 km of tracks should be upgraded annually. Also 1,000 track switches should be replaced each year, and 1,200 km of lines require major repair.

Maintenance of infrastructure also requires significant investments. Along with switches, roadbed, bridges and tunnels require annual repair as well. In addition, there is a need to renew the maintenance vehicles park to perform routine repairs and diagnostics of railroad lines. Thus, maintenance of infrastructure in general requires about 470 million UAH annually.