OREANDA-NEWS. December 27, 2010. A total of 16,190 freight cars owned by Freight One were damaged in the first 11 months of the year, or 11% more than during the same period of 2009 (14,566 cars). Gondolas were the hardest hit type of rolling stock at 14,891 units or 92%.

In most of the cases, the damage was caused by grab buckets during unloading. They were the cause of damage to 13,817 cars or 85% of the total number of damaged cars.

The most hazardous port in this regard has long been Murmansk Sea Commercial Port, which accounted for about 36% of the total number of damaged cars in 2010. The situation is similar at other ports where grab buckets are used. In particular, there were many such incidents at the Vostochny (East) (15%) and Tuapse (9.4%) ports.

The company says it lost RUR 37.1 million in direct costs alone due to damage to cars in the ports during the period. Repairs accounted for RUR 6.6 million of this total. More than RUR 24.0 million was spent on hauling the damaged cars to and from repair facilities. Losses from the downtime exceeded RUR 6.5 million.

The process of repairing a car takes at least 5 days. As gondolas are in very short supply in Russia, this is a serious problem not only for operators, but for shippers as well. It’s impossible to restore cars thus damaged to their original condition. Deformations accumulate, the condition of the gondola fleet worsens, and the gondolas wear out faster.

Freight One CEO Salman Babayev says the Transport Ministry should have intervened long ago. He also noted that the ports had taken no steps over the past two years to upgrade their equipment so as to reduce damage to cars. For example, a plan has been developed to upgrade the Murmansk Commercial Sea Port’s equipment, but it is still awaiting implementation.

"We’ve proposed that sea ports using grab buckets should sign an agreement that provides penalties for damage. But neither port has agreed to it. If the problem doesn’t get resolved in the near future, we will be forced to either incorporate losses due to damage into our rates or refuse to haul to stations that use aggressive unloading equipment, as most private operators are now doing," he said.