Freight One, owned by OAO Russian Railways, will phase out 10 per cent of cement hoppers fleet by the end of 2010. The company said that 2800 cars will be phased out – 18 per cent of all cement hoppers owned by the company (53 per cent of Russia’s cement car fleet).

Freight One said that profitability of a cement car is around RUB350 per day, the funds are mainly used to maintain cars and do not allow the company to renovate the rolling stock. The average service life of cement hoppers operated by Freight One is 20.3 years versus the standard of 26 years.

The payback period of the cement hopper is 15 years with new car price at RUB1.6m. The company believes that cement transportation tariffs should be increased three-fold to allow companies to renovate the cement hoppers fleet, the Kommersant newspaper said.
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