KYIV, Oct 28 – Ukraine seeks to buy 50 electric locomotives made by the French transport machinery group Alstom to move heavy cargo, and hopes to eventually start making them locally, Volodymyr Zhmak, the general director of Ukrzaliznytsia, said.

The developments reverse previous plans to buy 40 electric locomotives from General Electric after the U.S. company has delivered 30 locomotives in 2019.

"We have a very outdated fleet of locomotives and we need to strategically update it,” Zhmak said. “We are interested in 50 two-system electric locomotives capable of transporting from 5,500 to 6,000 metric tons of cargo.”