"Serbian Railways" signed contract with local repair companies

"Serbian Railways" signed 2.1 billion RSD worth of contracts today (July 29, 2009) for overhaul and production of locomotives and cars with eight local repair companies.

- Total of 109 passenger cars, 500 freight cars and 12 locomotives should be repaired, while 100 new freight cars should be purchased from the Railway Car Factory in Kraljevo - "Serbian Railways" announced.

The funds for realization of the project, which should be finished by the end of the year, have been provided by the Government of Serbia through the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development from the budget funds for year 2009.

The guarantee for realization of the project will be in the form of special loans of the Development Fund.

The Director General of "Serbian Railways", Milovan Marković, said that the realization of the project would make it possible for that public company to satisfy the needs of the market already by the end of the year.

According to his words, all repair companies in Serbia are included in the project, and total of 2,250 workers will be employed.

As he specified, "Goša" from Smederevska Palanka will repair and reconstruct 54 passenger cars for 351m RSD, while Smederevo-based "Želvoz" will repair 145 freight and 55 passenger cars for 420m RSD.

The overhaul of 100 freight cars for 101m RSD will be done by Subotica-based "Bratstvo", "Vagonka" from Niš will repair 125 cars for 170m RSD, MIP from Ćuprija will repair 80 cars for 79m RSD, while "Intermehanika" from Smederevo will repair 50 cars for 45m RSD.

Niš-based "Lokomotiva" got 358m RSD to repair 12 locomotives, while 100 new cars will be purchased from Kraljevo-based Railway Car Factory for 578m RSD.

Marković said that the passenger cars owned by "Serbian Railways" were about 30 years old at average, and that was the reason why the maintenance costs were so high and why there was constant lack of cars.

- "Serbian Railways" needs about 5,500 freight cars to satisfy the needs of the economy sector, and it currently has only 3,500 - said Marković.

He reminded that over 40% of freight cars were older than 30, and he added that "Serbian Railways" had lost about 90m EUR over the last three years because of the lack of freight cars.