Ukrainians will go on Russian-American locomotives

The other day, Ukrainian railroad workers received a new locomotive, which received the proud name "Trident". The Ukrainian media presented this event as a real breakthrough, because the car was created according to the American project, which means Kiev will gain access to the western technology. But, as is usually the case, there is a little bit of hell in each overload.

This story began in 2009, when a new locomotive plant was opened in Kazakhstan. At the same time, the company began assembling freight diesel locomotives of type TE33A under the license of the American General Electric Transportation. In fact, this locomotive is an American locomotive GE Evolution ES44ACi optimized for the East European gauge.



Over the years, the Kazakhs have saturated their market with new diesel locomotives and the question arose - either close the enterprise or enter new markets. Soon, 50% of the plant’s shares were bought by the Russian Transmash and its products began to be imported into our country. However, this was not enough to save the project, and after a while Kazakhstan sold the remaining 50% of the plant’s share to the Americans.

Thus, the enterprise became Russian-American.