“Competition is going to be stimulating for us”

Interview with Mr. Liviu Paduraru, Manager of the Company for Washing Freight Carriages of General Use, CFR SSVM.

 

Railway Journal: The Company for Washing Freight Carriages of General Use has already one year since it was created. How would you describe this period in your activity?
Liviu Paduraru: We are one year and five months old, to be more precise. And all this time we work very, very hard, with dedication. I would like to say that the average age of our employees is somewhere around 26 years old. So the majority of our employees is made of young men who have become a new activity. They got involved in this branch even from the every beginning of the company. Of course, there were the imminent errors of every beginning, but with the appropriate advice, we have done pretty well so far. With the risk of repeating myself, I say that as a characteristic for this period was our dedication.
Together with the management, we succeeded, and I say it without false modesty, in administrating our budget very well. Our first objective was to improve the working conditions, because we need such changes in our activity sector. This I knew even from the times I used to be the chief of the marshalling department and I coordinated the department of carriages washing, and I would like to assure you of the fact that carriages washing is quite a difficult activity. That is why I considered a priority to improve the working conditions and I invested a great deal of our income for this purpose.
The second objective included the norms and provisions for environmental protection. We replaced traditional washing and disinfecting substances for the carriages - meaning caustic soda and formaldehyde - which are very polluting and bad for our body, with a total biodegradable disinfecting substance called Super Biosept. Using it we managed to already obtain the environment permits for all our washing services.
We also improved washing technological process, by renouncing in a 60% proportion at the old washing installations, and by introducing some new and modern German washing devices. These devices fulfill the two conditions we had in mind even from the beginning of our activity: working conditions and the impact over the environment.
RJ: Have you complete organization programs in all washing stations you coordinate?
LP: In every zonal railway department there is at least one washing section for carriages. These are located at Bucharest Marshalling Service, Piatra Olt - Craiova Zonal Department, Timisoara and Arad - Timisoara zonal Department, Oradea and apahida - Cluj Zonal Department, Brasov Marshalling Service - Brasov Zonal Department, Pascani - Iasi Zonal Department, Babosi - Galati zonal Department, and Palas - Constanta Zonal Department. All in all there are 10 such washing stations all over the country. The activity in these stations is based mainly on washing the freight carriages of general use belonging both to the Freight Railway Company and to the private owners.
RJ: How many employees do you have at the moment?
LP: The company started from one single employee, which was I, because of a circumstance of the moment, and I must thank to all the people who appreciated me, from this point of view. I hired people because a great part of the old personnel had already gone; in a year and five months we are all together 217 employees.
RJ: Does your personnel insure the needs of the company?
LP: At the moment they insure 75% of the normal capacity. Why? You already know it, Romanian economy is very slow, and freight transportation is very closed related to the welfare of the economy.
Presently any owner of a freight carriage park has no other possibility of washing them, but using all the washing stations of CFR SSVM. But we didn’t take any advantage of this, let’s say monopoly, because we strongly believe that we have to offer our clients, no matter who he could be, a better prompt and good service with appropriate costs. Furthermore we whish to reduce taxes, a fact that will become possible due to continuos technology improvement.
RJ: What do you propose for the expansion of the objectives of the society as stated in the GO No 8/1999 that founded CFR SSVM as a branch of the CFR SA.
LP: To impose ourselves definitively on the market we decided to focus our attention on two major objectives.
The first is related to the railway activity: together with CFR Freight and with the help of the Transport Ministry we would like to take over all disinfecting stations on the border. It is a proven fact that Romania represented a biological barrier between the East and the West; in Western Europe there are no such stations on the border. History imposed them in Romania. The second objective for 2001 that is also mentioned in our status is washing transport vehicles. We already started to do so in our Arad station that is very close to the Curtici frontier. Auto traffic is heavy in the area. We started works with some leftover funds from some washing ramps for eighteen wheelers. We also think of stating works on washing substations in Apahida, Palas and Barbosi where geographical conditions are optimal. We hope that by the end of the year we will finish the other three substations and open the to business.
RJ: How do you think you will attract your customers?
LP: Our strategy is simple, based on honesty in partnership and sincerity. This means good quality for low prices. We also intend to supply electricity and water. We are now feeding plants in Bucharest Triage and Pascani for our partner CFR Freight. They heat up some space and use industrial water that we provide. In Palas we provide potable water to a private enterprise - TRIOSA.
RJ: who are the customers of CFR SSVM for now?
LP: Our traditional customers - CFR Freight and partially the former components of SNCFR. We are now working with CFR SA. So far the only private enterprises we serve are TRANSFRIGOTREN that was a client of the former SNCFR and in now ours.
RJ: Out of what you told us we understood that there are no other companies like CFR SSVM. If competition will appear what will you do, how will you act. What do you think your strong points are?
LP: I for one would really like to have some competition because it would promote competitiveness. For our strong points let me tell you this: we have been washing the whole park of CFR Freight - a mastodon in itself. This means we are stable and we have good referrals. But this is not all. I would be glad for competition because the stimuli would brig better solutions. We only have our experience so far and, to be honest, the safety of monopoly.
RJ: What is your usual work rhythm?
LP: There are fluctuations due to seasons but as an average we wash some 5000 wagons per month. Let me give you a few examples: in 1999 in seven months we washed 9.394 wagons and in 2000 in nine months we washed 21.252 wagons. Our incomes were in 1999 - 4.883.000.000 lei and in 2000 - 11.371.000.000 and we upped our fees only once on November 1st. We closed the year 1999 with 249.000.000 lei net profit and 2000 with 671.000.000 lei net profit.
RJ: What other projects do you have for next year?
LP: We have three major objectives regarding investments and capital repairs in 2001. We will dispose with the old installations and we will include modern washing machinery on all substations. We will repair all pipes and drainage systems. The third objective is improving conditions on our main headquarter. Other objectives we do not have but I am 100% sure we will finalize those we do have.
RJ: Your optimism seems benefic and we wish it would rub off on your subordinates.
LP: I am open and my optimism is based on a clean heart. We have a team here and we all play to win. On this occasion I would like to wish good health to all my collaborations and may the year 2001 be much better than past years.

Silvia Mitulescu reporting