June 21, 2013. A round table discussion was held on the premises of Uralvagonzavod, the head plant of Uralvagonzavod Corporation. The discussion was dedicated to freight forwarding, traction equipment, and railway carriages. One out of nine round table discussions was coordinated in accordance with the ruling of Russian Railway Industry Workers’ National Council and was part of preparing for the 1st conference of the railway industry workers based in Ural Federal District, the corporation’s press service reports.

All of the round table discussion participants pointed out that the railway reform took a long time to go through, and enterprises needed to enter into a constructive discussion with Russian Railways. The railway shipments market is a highly complicated system, and problems faced by companies that manufacture and operate railway vehicles and by those that deal in freight forwarding are similar in many ways.

These problems include: busy railways, low freight capacity of freight trains, loading and shipment issues like late delivery, under-use of carriages due to lack of locomotives, the worn-out condition of the carriages, no clear schedule for operating the locos, high loco rent, and poor service offered by repair depots and at the enterprises’ own railways.