Russia’s Sinara Transport Machines (STM) has recently launched work to assemble RTM-32 machine sets at the production site of San Engineering & Locomotives in India, signalling the herald of Indo-Russian cooperation in the railways sector.
Technical experts of Sinara Transport Machines Holding (STM, part of the Sinara Group) who recently started working in India, will also guide and supervise the start-up and adjustment works after the equipment is manufactured.
According to a statement released by STM, SKD is being implemented within the framework of the governmental program “Make in India”, which assumes a degree of localization of at least 51%.
Russia’s history of cooperation with India goes back several years back. The country also has a centuries old history of a vast railway network which it inherited from Tsarist days and the Soviet Union. Russian Railways is one of the biggest railway companies in the world and the total length used by it is one of the largest in the world.
Russian Railways also carries the third biggest freight in the world and has in the pipeline several planned projects of high speed trains between key cities. In 2005–2010, Russian Railways launched a program to introduce new high-speed trains. The first high-speed train, Sapsan, commenced service in December 2009 and connects Saint Petersburg, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod and is operated with trains manufactured by the German company Siemens.
Russia also has the longest railway line in the world, with a length of over 9,289 kilometres (5,772 miles), starting from Moscow and ending at Vladivostok, on the Pacific Ocean. The Trans–Siberian Railway is a network of railways connecting Western Russia to the Russian Far East, having directly connected Moscow with Vladivostok since 1916.
Based on the Russian equipment, Work Site Tampers (WST, track renewal train) will be produced. Track equipment of this type is used in construction, repair and maintenance of railway tracks. Besides, they are good for working with wooden and reinforced concrete sleepers. The machine sets are assembled at the production sites of San Engineering & Locomotives Co. Ltd located in Bangalore. The company is STM’s partner in the project.
