Specialists from METINVEST PROMSERVICE's Metallurgical Equipment Maintenance And Repair Shop at Branch 3 have gained effective experience in restoring railway equipment. In September, at the request of Kamet Steel's railway workers, they mastered a new type of work – major overhaul of hopper cars, a special type of railway car designed to transport hot sinter It will allow the enterprise to reduce the cost of such repairs by a quarter compared to outsourced repairs.

Previously, such cars were sent to car repair plants in the city and region in order to carry out their major overhaul From now on, such work is carried out by METINVEST PROMSERVICE's Metallurgical Equipment Maintenance and Repair Shop at their facilities at Kamet-Steel. Specialists from METINVEST PROMSERVICE's Design Department also took part in preparing for the new repair technology mastering by producing working drawings together with specialists from the subdivision-customer.

The major overhaul technology involves dismantling the car to the frame and inspecting and detecting all metal structures, except for the wheel section The next stage is to restore them and partially replace the supporting metal structures. Some shaped metal parts are cut using a plasma cutting machine. The process is completed with the complete replacement of the metal covering - the bottom floor and side walls of the hopper are tightly covered with a special corrugated steel sheet.

A certain part of the repair work is carried out at height, using special equipment, overhead cranes, etc. Therefore, special attention is paid to compliance with all safety requirements for electric and gas welders and repairmen.

Dmytro LUBENETS, Head of Metallurgical Equipment Maintenance and Repair Shop of Metinvest Promservice:

"Specialists of our shop are always on the move and systematically acquire new knowledge and master new types of repairs. Recently, our colleagues – Kamet Steel's railway workers, conducted a thorough inspection and acceptance of the first hopper we overhauled and noted its full compliance with technical requirements In addition, we managed to reduce the cost of repairs by almost 25% compared to previous work at other enterprises. So by the end of the year, we have orders for the repair of four more cars, two of which we have already put into active service.