Stadler has won a contract valued at a total of 4,000 million euros, the highest in its history, for the manufacture and delivery in Germany and Austria of up to 504 Citylink model trams, whose engineering comes from the factory that the Swiss multinational owns. in Albuixech (Valencia). The place of manufacture of the units will be decided in the coming months. The award, part of a project to interconnect cities in southern Germany, has been carried out by a consortium of six German and Austrian operators, who will use them for their VDV-Tram-Train project.
This new type of light rail for urban transport in medium-sized metropolitan areas arose as a result of a request from the Generalitat Valenciana for the tram and light rail network linking Alicante with coastal towns such as Benidorm and Dénia, and has been in development since 2003 .
The contract establishes that Stadler will manufacture 246 Citylink vehicles for the six operators over the next 10 years for an amount of 1,700 million, in addition there is the possibility of expanding them up to 504 units and assuming maintenance for 32 years.
The first four vehicles are scheduled to be delivered to the Saarbahn in 2024.
Sources from the Albuixech factory have expressed their satisfaction that "Europe has opted for a mobility solution such as the TRAM Citylink, fully developed in Valencia". “It is clear that all the engineering will be done in Valencia, which is the center of competence for this vehicle. Normally when a foreign company buys a Spanish company, the transfer is from outside to inside; here it has been the other way around. A third of our workforce belongs to the engineering department, about 400 workers, out of a total of 1,500. The place of manufacture will be decided in the coming months”, they added.
Stadler has half a dozen factories in Europe, some closer to the German market.
"Now it's about seeing who wins that internal competition and wins the contract that, from the manufacturing point of view, ensures your future for years."
In tram behavior, the Citylink reaches a speed of 60 kilometers;
as Cercanías, about 100 kilometers.
With this new contract, the multinational has sold more than 650 units of this model in six different countries.
“We are proud to have won this international tender with our proven vehicle concept.
To design a 'train-tram' vehicle you need experience and this contract also requires the ability to combine standard solutions with customized solutions”, said the president and CEO of Stadler, Peter Spuhler.
All the vehicles will be made up of three modules, although, depending on the destination and the client, the length, the number of doors, the entrance and coupling height, as well as the interior design of the convoys may vary.
They will have air conditioning in the passenger and driver areas, as well as flexible design multifunctional areas with two spaces for wheelchair users.
Spanish factory
The Stadler train factory in Spain has been dodging the effects of the coronavirus.
It has announced an investment of 40 million euros and has not stopped growing both in terms of staff and turnover.
In 2020, the year of the pandemic, the Albuixech plant, located 10 kilometers from Valencia, went full steam ahead with various projects and orders underway.
The Spanish factory obtained its largest order to date last year, when Renfe awarded it 59 high-capacity trains for suburban networks worth almost 1,000 million euros.