Railroad castings and products

In 2002 PROMLIT started manufacturing of new products - railroad castings which are in high demand constantly increasing both in Russia and other CIS countries. Preproduction of railroad parts demanded considerable changes of existing production facilities.

The HERMAN automatic molding lines purchased in the USA in early 80-th were rebuild. Obsolete and worn-out parts were changed, the size of flasks was increased. New core making equipment was purchased from German company LAEMPE GmbH so as to produce one-piece large and heavy cores.
At present the following parts for freight railroad cars are produced: truck side frames, bolsters, draft gear bodies, coupler units, coupler yokes, truck friction shoes and many more. The list of railroad parts manufactured at PROMLIT will be increasing during the coming years. The share of machined parts is also growing. As a result the company is going to produce the assembled main units of freight railroad cars.

The strategic partner of Promlit is the corporation Russian Railroads (RZd). In accordance with 10-year supply agreement the major share of Promlit products are shipped to RZd subdivision busy with repair or manufacturing of freight railroad cars. One of principal customers of Promlit is ZAO Promtractor-Vagon also belonging to Concern Tractor Plants and situated at a distance of about 80 km from Cheboksary. Promlit products are also supplied to many other customers in Russia and CIS countries.
Modernization program of the Russian Railroads provides for replacement of existing rolling stock fleet consisting mostly of 70 tn payload freight cars with new generation 100 tn freight cars. Promlit has successfully certified side frames and bolsters for trucks with 25 tn axle load. These trucks will be used in production of new railroad cars by the leading Russian rolling stock manufacturers.

Railroad industry sets very high level of product quality since it is important for safety of railroad transportation. All castings for railroad industry are certified by railroad authorities before the mass production, the certified inspectors of the Russian Railroads constantly monitor all stages of production at the foundry. Production castings are taken for production tests which include static and dynamic load testing at the foundry. At regular intervals production castings are cut with a band saw though critical areas to check for possible defects.

So as to improve the mechanical properties of the cast parts they are subjected to thermal treatment (normalization and tempering) in tunnel ovens. The manufacturing of new products increased the annual foundry output and created many new jobs. The quality management system of the foundry was certified in 1996 according to ISO 9002 by the British Standards Institution and in 2002 it was recertified by the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping according to ISO 9001-2000.

In November 2005 a new Heinrich Wagner Sinto V-process molding line with flask size 3000x1800x500/500 mm was put into production at PROMLIT foundry. The production rate of the new line is 20 moulds per hour. The line is used for production of Side Frames and Bolsters for railroad cars and other large size castings for machine building industry. The V-process is the latest and the most environment friendly molding processes. This production line has considerably increased the manufacturing of top quality large-size castings.