Prague, January 10, 2019 – A new, modern EffiLiner 1600 diesel engine, called Bison, made by the company CZ LOKO, was added to the engine shed of subsidiary company of Unipetrol, Unipetrol Doprava, which is involved in railway transport and forwarding of chemical products, at the end of December.
Together with another engine of the same type, which had already found it place in the depot in November, the new EffiLiner 1600 completed the total number of Bisons under the colours of Unipetrol to the final four. The purchase of four engines from CZ LOKO is part of gradual renewal of the vehicle fleet of the company. Besides the four Bisons, Unipetrol also purchased three electric Vectron engines from the company Siemens in 2017 and 2018.
“For a few months we have been using the modernized EffiLiner 1600 engines, our three machines have transported half a million tons of cargo and covered 200,000 km with it. Modernization of our engine fleet is one of the preconditions for meeting our medium-term plan to increase the volume of products transported by rail,“ said Jaroslav Dvořák, executive manager of the company UNIPETROL DOPRAVA, s.r.o.
The EffiLiner 1600 diesel-electric engine by CZ LOKO, which has been given the nickname Bison, is powered by a CAT 3512 C-HD engine with the power of 1.6 MW and is equipped with AC-DC power transmission from the combustion engine to four driving wheel pairs. This is the eighth engine of this series, which was obtained by redesigning of engines of type 753 called the spectacle-snake. It has a completely new design and thanks to a new solution of the undercarriage an extended maintenance interval. The company CZ LOKO handed over the remaining two of the four ordered engines to the company Unipetrol Doprava for which Unipetrol Doprava had an option.
"We consider the EffiLiner 1600 project very successful. It has turned out that these track locomotives have high operational reliability and low operating and maintenance costs. Their usage at Unipetrol Doprava has confirmed that it will be able to withstand heavy traffic," said Josef Gulyás, CEO of CZ LOKO, a.s.
The purchase of the new engines was a planned investment of the Unipetrol group into the renewal of the railway vehicle fleet of the company Unipetrol Doprava, which is an important railway forwarder in the Czech Republic and with its contractual partners it also arranges for transport to neighbouring states. Besides transport of chemical products, Unipetrol Doprava also focuses on goods forwarding, rental of rail vehicles, repair and cleaning services and consulting activities. Its customers comprise companies of the Unipetrol Holding as well as many other external customers, which are major railway forwarding companies, foreign transport companies and other chemical plants without any links to the Holding.