The Day of Railway Employee, a professional holiday of the employees of Ukraine’s rail transport, is celebrated on November 4 annually. On November 4, 1861, from Vienna to Lviv railway station via Peremyshl there came the first train in the territory of modern Ukraine. This day is considered to be the beginning of railway history in Ukraine.
On the occasion of the professional holiday we introduce you NIBULON’s team of the department for operation and repair of railway facilities.
“A railway employee is important for our modern European company, as the railway is one of the key transport arteries. Without railway facilities the railway itself can not exist, because the whole infrastructure starts with railing. Long before a steam locomotive was invented, the humanity used (for example, in mines) track panel, a forefather of the modern railway”, tells Oleksiy Rebizhenko, a head of the department.
According to him, the team of the department builds railway lines, maintains them and ensures safe movement of trains and safe performance of maneuverable operations. This guarantees execution of the company’s plans as to transportation of grain crops by railway transport.
“Our employees have vocational education – Mykolayiv railway transport technical school, universities, academies”, mentions Dmytro Baturyn, deputy head of the department, “Before coming to NIBULON we worked by specialty, but at NIBULON we were given the opportunity to be engaged in full cycle of professional works – design, construction, operation. Thus, our department consists of practitioners and not theorists; we have engineers, foremen, assemblers. The department maintains above 12 km of NIBULON’s local railways”.
Oleksiy Rebizhenko adds,“We have our own small traditions. For example, construction of railway track is finished with the following phrase “The condition of the railway track is excellent, number of points is zero”. In general, our main tradition is operable technical condition of all railway lines”.
“And as about secrets in our work”, says Oleksandr Zalevskyy, an assembler, “There are no secrets. The main thing is to do everything according to the instructions, rules, and norms. Then there will be neither secrets nor surprises”.
“Peculiarity of our work is constant business trips within Ukraine. Each of us writes his peculiar “book of trips”, as according to our calculations, more than 50% of our working time is business trips! It is good that the company favours our work: complete staff, the large number and diversity of hydraulic, electric equipment” says Sergiy Vedmedchuk, an engineer.
“An interesting fact connected with the schedule of our work is presence of so called “grab bag”, smiles Dmytro Lopushanskyy, a foreman,“Thus, each one is ready for a business trip at any time. It takes us no more than 10 minutes to pack our suitcases”.
Oleksandr Kryshyn, an assembler, tells“Love for this profession appeared since childhood. Everybody had toy railroads that changed into the real roar of railcars and a song sang by metal. And today our children look at trains with admiration and ask whether we constructed this railway. It is wonderful when profession is passed to the next generation”.
“One of the key achievements and innovations was the use of auxiliary winches (during construction of the elevator complex of “Reshetylivs’ka” branch), recollects Oleksiy Rebizhenko, “Their use ensures maneuvers of railcars without using a diesel locomotive. Further use of such devices at the company’s elevators allowed to decrease financial expenses for maneuverable operations”.
“Since own shipbuilding and repair yard “NIBULON” started to be reconstructed”, mentions Dmytro Baturyn, “the department had new ‘navigation-railway’ tasks. In particular, we will repair rails of the shipyard’s slip (a sloping surface leading down to the water, on which ships are built or repaired). We will contribute to the construction of new vessels and tugs of the company which will sail in Ukraine and abroad.