Against the backdrop of a sharp rise in prices for railcars and a decrease in operating margins after the Central Bank increased the key rate, some operators are suspending fleet purchases. Prices for standard gondola cars exceeded 5 million rubles, for tanks and mineral carriers - 6 million rubles, experts note, and this despite the decline in the cost of steel. The reason is rising costs in the car building industry, especially labor costs, since the main enterprises now lack about 15% of the required staff. At the same time, the fleet on the network has already exceeded 1.3 million units, which is a historical record.

Over the past five years, the fleet of freight cars has increased by 188 thousand units, or 16.9%, Mikhail Glazkov, Deputy General Director of RZD JSCo, reported in August. According to him, three times more new cars arrive on the network than are retired due to their service life; every day 47 thousand cars stand idle on public tracks for more than three days.

According to IEDT, RZD reported that the surplus of the working fleet on the network is 190.3 thousand cars. But rolling stock production is growing. In the first half of the year, according to Rosstat, it increased by 5.9% to 28.5 thousand units. 

The full text of the article can be found on the website Kommersant.