RCC – new factory for wagon metal castings
On 7 November 2013 OVK (United Wagon Company, see R 5/13, p. 60) and Tatravagonka have launched production at a new joint venture know as Railway Casted Components (RCC) to manufacture Barber bogie heavy castings for 1,520 mm gauge wagons. The inauguration ceremony was attendad by RZD President Vladimir Yakunin and the Slovakian Prime Minister, Robert Fico.
The RCC works is situated in Prakovce, Slovakia (roughly halfway between Poprad and Kosice), and occupies part of the premises of the former ZTS Prakovce engineering works, which closed in 2009. OVK is one of the shareholders in RCC, while the other is Tatravagonka, which forms part of the Optifin Invest group of companies. Total investment in the joint venture is around 20 million EUR. The products involved are heavy castings for the Barber bogie, which is designed for an axle-load of 23.5 t and 25 t. The factory has already been granted a certificate of conformity by RS FZht. RCC has a production capacity of up to 3,600 wagon sets of castings per annum. The first delivery to Russia is expected early in 2014.
OVK believes that the Barber bogie will become the industry standart in the near future. There is clearly a market demand for it, both in Russia Federal Government and RZD are supporting the freight operators to buy innovative wagons, and a number of wagon manufactures have expressed interest in it. For OVK the new facility offers an alternative production base to its huge Tikhvinsky vagonostroitelny zavod (TVSZ).
