Rybinsk Road Machinery Plant

The company, which later specialised in road construction machinery, grew out of railway workshops founded in Rybinsk in 1870. The first road roller was built in 1931. During the Second World War mines and aircraft bombs were produced. In 1945 production of the road machinery needed to restore war-damaged roads resumed. Production of the D-45 5-tonne road roller began. Perhaps the best known of the plant's post-war products is the D-211, a 10-tonne static three-drum roller built from the late 1940s. Until the 1960s rotary snow ploughs, stone crushers and other construction and road machinery were also built.

An almost complete renewal of the range took place in the early 1970s, when road rollers with hydrodynamic and hydrostatic transmissions went into production in place of several outdated designs. In the 1970s and 1980s the DU-47, DU-48, DU-50 and other rollers were built. In 1980 Rybinsk rollers won several awards at international exhibitions in Leipzig, Sofia, Rostock and Moscow. From 1983, in cooperation with foreign plants, Polish gearboxes and Bulgarian steering units were fitted to Rybinsk rollers.

In 1984, after the death of Yuri Andropov (1914–1984), then General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, Rybinsk was renamed Andropov, and the plant's official name accordingly became the Andropov Road Machinery Plant (Андроповский завод дорожных машин). In 1989 the former names of both the town and the plant were restored.

Today the plant is called ЗАО Раскат (Рыбинские АСфальтовые КАТки, Rybinsk asphalt rollers) and still specialises in road rollers. More than ten models are in production, with smooth drums or combined running gear and weights from 1.5 to 15 tonnes.

See more on the manufacturer's website!