UC RUSAL will be supplying approximately 510 tons of aluminum to be used in the production of aluminum tram interiors. As part of the project, UC RUSAL will provide aluminum for a total of 300 tram interiors. This is the world’s largest contract to purchase trams for a single city.
The field of urban transport engineering is a new sector for UC RUSAL and one, which has significant growth potential in Russia. The new Vityaz-M trams, which contain three compartments, whose interior is entirely made of aluminum, are produced by a Krasnoyarsk based Machine-Building Components company. New trams are scheduled to be supplied to the Moscow transportation system in 2017-2019. RUSAL’s Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Smelter (KrAZ) will provide aluminum for the modern interiors. KrAZ metal is then processed at the Krasnoyarsk Metallurgical Plant to produce extruded shapes, which are then sent to the Krasnoyarsk Machine-building Components plant where the interior undergoes additional processing and manufacturing.
Today, these trams are already running several routes in downtown Moscow. In the first month of operation alone, the volume of passenger traffic on these two lines increased by 65-70% and now passengers arriving at Belorusskiy train station prefer the tram to other means of transportation.
Roman Andryushin, UC RUSAL head of Russia and CIS sales, commented: “Using aluminum for tram interiors is a precedent that can promote the expanding of aluminum application in Russian urban transport engineering. This project reaffirms the innovative spirit of Russian engineering as well as highlighting the competitiveness of Russian producers. The trend of using aluminum in transportation has been on the rise globally. We are ready to partner with all transport engineering companies, both in Russia and abroad, who are interested in using aluminum to manufacture their products or are interested in conducting R&D in this field.”
Vitaly Dengayev, General Director of OOO Krasnoyarsk Machine-building Components, confirmed that his company was actively cooperating with UC RUSAL in order to improve its competencies in using aluminum in the manufacturing of bodywork and tram interiors thus supporting the domestic consumption of aluminum, which also included the field of transport engineering. This, in particular, is with regard to supplying large companies including ZAO Transmashholding and Alstom Transport, which are both significant customers of the company. (MetalInfo/Ukrainian metal)