The leadership of the Railways of Ukrainian rejected the proposal of the UAC about transition to the European system of control over the technical condition of freight cars. This issue was empathized during a meeting with representatives of agricultural associations by the operational director of the Railways of Ukrainian Viacheslav Yeriomin and deputy director of the Department of Commercial Affairs Valery Tkachev.

"Let's work within the framework of the technical policy that existed in the Soviet Union. This is not some Russian development, this is a 1520 system, it has its own technical policy. So, it’s right that the Ministry of Infrastructure raises the issue: let's go back to those primary sources, to those norms that had always been in force," Valerii Tkachov responded to the UAC's proposal.

In turn, Viacheslav Yeriomin declared that the security system operating in Europe is too different from the Ukrainian one. Therefore, instead of it, the Railways of Ukrainian supports the proposal of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine to implement the initiative writing-off cars by age: their service life will be limited to the period set by a producer.

"In Europe, a producer never sets the service life of the vehicle. They really have a huge system of diagnostics and only it determines the further service life. This is a very big fundamental difference. And this applies to all vehicles in Europe. We are currently working according to another system. In our state a producer is responsible for it and he defines service life. Therefore, it is inexpedient to compare it at this stage, we are not ready for such a transition," he explained.

The UAC Deputy Chairman Mykhailo Sokolov said that farmers do not agree with this position and insist on the need to move to the European system both in terms of reform of the Railways of Ukrainian as a whole and in monitoring the technical condition of cars and traffic safety, even if it requires additional efforts and approaches:

"The European system is more economical and energy efficient. It controls the technical condition of cars, not their age. And the mentioned Soviet approach leads to mismanagement of resources. On the one hand, wagons that have exhausted their resources before the due date due to particularly stressful conditions of usage may be admitted to work, and on the other hand, quite suitable wagons that have been used less intensively or were overhauled can be written-off. In Europe, such cars, which are safe, are still used, but not written-off for scrap metal, as it was in the Soviet Union and it is proposed now," Mykhailo Sokolov said.

It will be recalled that the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine has taken the initiative not to extend the service terms of some types of freight cars, which will lead to the writing-off of about 46 thousand cars. Shippers will have to spend UAH107 billion over 10 years to renew their car fleet. A number of relevant organizations have already opposed this initiative. More than 200 companies from various sectors of the economy have signed an "Antimemorandum" against the writing-off of freight cars due to age rather than their technical condition.