Contract signed with the Kazakh State Railway

First project under the New Silk Road Initiative

Localization in the Eurasian Economic Union strengthened

The Schaeffler Group and the Kazakh freight car producer JSC "Kaztemirtrans" as part of the Kazakhstan State Railways signed a contract for the rebuilding of wheelset bearings at the end of May. In Kazakhstan, tens of thousands of wheelset bearings are in use. These are to be processed in the coming years in the Schaeffler plant Ulyanovsk in Russia.

"With the reconditioning program of its industrial division, Schaeffler supports the modernization process of the Kazakh railway", said Prof. Dr. med. Rainer Lindner, President of the subregion Central and Eastern Europe / Middle East and Africa at Schaeffler, on the occasion of the signing of the contract by Schaeffler Russland GmbH. For Kazakhstan itself, this is an important step in establishing itself as a hub along the Chinese government's One Belt One Road initiative, says Rainer Lindner. For the first time, the Schaeffler Group is actively involved in a project within the framework of the New Silk Road, which plans to modernize the industry and transport facilities in Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

In principle, the reprocessing of warehouses based on operating experience also enables technical improvements. For example, Schaeffler has developed a sealing system for operation down to -60 ° C. As a result, the special requirements of the trans-Eurasian transport corridor can be better taken into account.

By reprocessing wheelset bearings, which by the way is also possible for competitor products, Schaeffler continues to make an important contribution to CO2 reduction in the transport chain. Finally, the energy-intensive re-production of a warehouse is avoided. If requested by the customer, Schaeffler applies the DMC code to the bearings as part of the refurbishment process. This can create a life record for the product. The operating and maintenance history thus enables the extension of the maintenance intervals agreed with the operator and thus ultimately a reduction of the transport costs.

"Another way to extend maintenance intervals is to use TAROL bearings. These tapered roller bearing units are compact, factory-greased and sealed. This means they have a longer effective service life compared to the wheelset bearings commonly used in freight transport. " Michael Holzapfel, Head of the Railway Europe Division.