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Russian Railway networks facing "imminent collapse": report
(www.newsweek.com)
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this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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You could, it, ball bearings are a thing that frequently high precision, both in the metallurgy and in the machining and hardening.
And trains require that high precision. Keep in mind depending on where it’s at, that bearing might be getting exposed to high temperatures, heavy loads, and lots of friction. They may be custom diameters and are ordered with some really tight tolerances.
These particular bearings aren’t just found on Amazon and shipped the next day. China may not have the capacity to meet the demand (and it is a strategic resource, so they may not want to anyhow.)
Even then, they’re not the kind of ally who just bails out your national economy with out a quo to go with that quid, if you know what I mean. (My assumption is that China is backing Russia to turn them into a vassal state, like North Korea. Or get concessions on their disputed borders, etc.)
Bearings for rolling stock are actually relatively hard to come by, and there are only a few countries that even produce the two different steel alloys they are made from.
Ten companies in the world manufacture 75% of the bearings used in rail. With like 5 of them being located in Japan, and the rest in the US, Germany, and I believe Sweden. China only produces about 20% of bearings used in rail, but they are pretty much all for domestic use, as they are still expanding their network.
Couldn't they just use journal bearings? I think the majority of American rolling stock still uses journal bearings.
That's mainly because America mostly moves freight via trucks, and thus has very outdated rolling stock. It's not unusual to see freight chassis that are 50 plus years old.
Russia on the other hand moves the majority of their freight via rail, and like most countries utilize tapered roller bearings for their trains. This allows them to carry a lot more weight, and the bearings last nearly 3x as long.
I'm not quite sure what would be harder, to import new bearings, build a production line from the ground up for bearings, or retrofit all their rolling stock with outdated technology.
Each choice is going to be expensive and extremely time consuming.
Ah I see, makes sense.