How Uralvagonzavod Became One of the World's Leaders in Railcar Production

In the mid-fifties of the last century, another "synchronization of watches" took place at Uralvagonzavod, during which an analysis of the quality, price parameters and quantitative volumes of wagon production was conducted in comparison with their American counterparts. It must be said that the results of this assessment were a pleasant surprise.

It turned out that the plant not only keeps up with overseas manufacturers, but is actually on equal terms with them, and the quality of its products is at the level of the best examples of Western carriage building. But just recently, the Tagil residents experienced a lot of difficulties and clearly did not pull off a place among the world leaders.

However, “a lot of difficulties” is still a rather mild formulation, because there were problems on many fronts: the lack of technology for mass production of high-quality wheels with a long service life, a shortage of alloying materials for steel production, difficulties with the production of cast parts for wagons, etc.

How did you manage to solve all these problems?

The answer to this question can hardly be called simple and monosyllabic. The fact is that Uralvagonzavod was able to achieve such significant progress not only due to its own efforts, resources and innovations, of which there were more than enough. Foreign technologies also made a great contribution to the development of production, as well as, what is especially important, their adaptation to domestic conditions and realities.

Sergei Ustyantsev, a historian and scientific editor of the public relations department at Uralvagonzavod, talks about this in detail. The video with his story, filmed as part of the series “History technologies”, we offer for viewing.

Comments

[Uncle lee]

and the quality of the products it produces is on par with the best examples of Western carriage building.

"Galoshes, you say...Heh-eh!"

[Konnick]

I suppose that few people watched this video about the "world leadership" of UralVagonZavod. Even I, a former wagon driver, could not stand the provincial boasting of other wagon drivers. Let this expert tell about the "holy 90s" when UVZ became a tracing holder for all types of freight cars and bogies. In Soviet times, UVZ made covered wagons, which were previously called Pullmans. The Ministry of Railways did not really need them, they needed more tank cars for transporting oil products and gondola cars for transporting coal. Tank cars, since the tsarist times, were produced by the Mariupol (Zhdanovsky Heavy Machinery Plant) plant, the design was worked out and licked for a hundred years. And then in the 90s, UVZ became a manufacturer of tank cars, the first thing they did was change the design of both the car frame and the boiler itself. You can't write much in a comment, but I'll briefly describe the "achievements" of UVZ, the frame became 2 tons heavier with the motivation that it is possible to install buffer couplings for the purpose of selling abroad, the boiler also became 2 tons heavier, but they were simply able to repeat the ZhZTM technology where the lower armor was made of 12 mm sheet, and the upper ones of 10 mm... And they began to foist all this off through their lobby in the Ministry of Railways, and then through the Directorate of Freight Cars of Russian Railways. The bogie is a separate song for the Krokodil magazine.

[Dutchman Michel]

Quote: Konnick

And then in the 90s, UVZ became a manufacturer of tank cars

I am far from the topic of railways, but is it really so difficult for engineers to develop a tank or a freight car, even from scratch? It is not a spaceship or a nuclear submarine after all.

[Konnick]

This is not a spaceship or a nuclear submarine after all.

The submarine and the spaceship are one-off products, while the railcar is serial and used very intensively. When UVZ made their tank frame, it cracked after 1-2 years of operation, Mariupol followed the welding requirements for the frontal seams, 15 mm underwelding to the edge of the lower kingpin sheet, and UVZ welded reinforcement in these places out of ignorance and when I pointed this out to them, they ignored it and reinforced this unit even more, because of which they began to write off the railcars, whether this is malicious intent or stubbornness - I don’t know, but the problem with hot weld cracks exists in the manufacture of the T-90 tank turret. They simply ignore the technology of ZhZTM, which welded hulls for all tank factories in Soviet times. There are a lot of nuances in the design of any product. And as for the spaceship... I encountered the designers of NPO Energia, in order to work with their design documentation, you need to be a very, very qualified worker. I had to completely rework their documentation for production into a normal form so that the workers would not rack their brains and turn the drawings upside down and spit.

[Sergey250455]

What about Altaivagon? It also makes tanks. The cars are made from scratch. From the bogie onwards

[Konnick]

What about Altaivagon? It also makes tanks. The cars are made from scratch. From the bogie onwards

There are many who make tanks now, the main one is RuzKhimMash. But everyone makes heavy frames and boilers by assembling from tsars. The bogies were developed by the Kharkov Institute, the so-called Khanin bogie TsNII-Kh3. Now in the Russian Federation the copyright holder of the documentation is UVZ
Compare the elegant Soviet tanks and the monstrous modern ones, 143 buildings - conditional number of ZhZTM, UVZ conditional number 5

[Sergey250455]

Sorry, I am a railwayman, but I did not see the difference. I was a railway driver

[Konnick]

but I didn't see any difference

Previously, the tank car frames were of the backbone type, now, as before the introduction of the automatic coupling, they are spatial with side beams, this began with a trick of UVZ... like the possibility of installing spring buffers under a screw coupling of the European type, in order to sell it at a higher price. Well, the boiler itself is now assembled from 5 shells (tsars) 12 mm thick, in Zhdanov it rolled from a canvas with an armor 12 mm and two upper sheets 10 mm.

[uwzek]

Quote: Konnick

which in Soviet times was welded for all tank factories of the corps.

Judging by some points, you, mister, seem to be in the know. But...
There were definitely no Zhdanov tank hulls at any Soviet tank factories (well, maybe except Kharkov). For the same UVZ in Chelyabinsk they also made tank hulls (approximately 10-15% of the monthly output of vehicles). Due to the difference in production volumes, their quality in some ways slightly exceeded that of Tagil. It was immediately obvious how some welded seams with a total length of 300 millimeters were made in hull tilters, which lost about an hour and a half of the entire plant's working time. Extremely high-quality painting (UVZ does not have a special paint shop for tanks, and the paint shop is definitely the same as ChTZ, with an output of ten times more). But here the laws of large numbers came into play. If the average fitter-assembler of tank hulls at UVZ received 500-700 rubles per month (with the national average being 115 and less), then at ChTZ he received 50-70 for his job and naturally did not work. In terms of overall quality, the Chelyabinsk hulls are incredible crap and their tanks cost the country an extremely high price to produce (as I understand, the Mariupol ones as well)...
Briefly about technologies. They always depend on the equipment of the enterprise. Somewhere it is the coolest, in most cases it is like everyone else, something it can not do...
About your favorite tanks. Exactly in the same years when your Zhdanov (and for some reason you - it seems to me somewhat younger) was developing lightweight tanks, Tagil developed and still manufactures various cryogenic tanks without which we would not fly into space...
In one of my professions I am a boilermaker. I know the process of manufacturing tanks from the inside, as well as the mortality rate in that production. It is clear that on the site almost 100% of visitors have absolutely no idea how much labor is required to join half rings with a difference in thickness of 10 mm (if these are not half rings, then even worse). Also, such a design does not meet modern standards (I have a certificate from the Marine Register). And all for the sake of saving 2 tons of iron at the expense of reduced reliability and a couple of lives of workers ...
Long Ukrainians arose...