Renfe will purchase trains that may run at 350 kilometers per hour and can fee the supply time | Companies | EUROtoday

Renfe groups and Ministry of Transport workers are engaged on the ultimate particulars of the specs for the anticipated buy of trains to strengthen the general public operator’s high-speed fleet. The order might be within the thousands and thousands, with out the tender finances having been exceeded thus far, and never solely the worth or technical options might be scored, but in addition the supply time.

The consignment will attain 30 trains, if there are not any final minute adjustments, and Renfe will reserve contractual choices to extend that quantity beneath the identical circumstances that it’ll impose for the primary batch. The tender, in line with sources near the operator, must be launched on the finish of this month of January.

After the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, and the president of Renfe himself, Álvaro Fernández Heredia, have insisted on the urgency of getting this rolling inventory as quickly as attainable, the supply date might be decisive. “It will not be as important as the price, but it will become an important criterion,” says a supply concerned within the course of. Among the necessities of the doc, the necessity for the brand new items to be able to touring at 350 kilometers per hour will even be highlighted. In this fashion, it accompanies the method that the infrastructure administrator (Adif) goes to start with the reworking of the Madrid-Barcelona line in the hunt for lowering incidents and bettering options equivalent to pace of passage.

The order will give attention to mounted axle trains, whereas the final order from Renfe included variable gauge know-how in 2016. The anticipated tender will embody, as within the one carried out throughout the time of Íñigo de la Serna on the head of Public Works, upkeep for a interval that’s anticipated to be 15 years. This work of supervision and association of the trains could be carried out via an organization owned by Renfe and the chosen producer.

It stays to be seen if the corporate depending on the Ministry of Transportation marries a single provider or orders trains from a few factories. Minister Puente, along with the president of Renfe, Fernández Heredia, has supervised in current months the supply of Siemens, Hitachi and the Chinese CRRC, visiting their crops in the hunt for data on technical traits, costs, manufacturing capability, shares and supply occasions. They additionally know first-hand the probabilities of CAF, Talgo or Alstom.

The chief govt of Renfe praised the Chinese materials in an interview given to this newspaper on his return from the Asian nation. “China is no joke and the European railway industry has to be at the same level. Today we have to wait five to eight years from the time you start purchasing rolling stock until you have it operating on the tracks,” he lamented.

Renfe started working in May 2024, greater than two years late, with the primary of the 30 Talgo Avril (Renfe sequence 106) ordered in 2016. And there may be nonetheless no particular date to present entry to the 13 items of the 107 sequence, additionally from Talgo and that had been anticipated in early 2025. “In the face of great pressure from travelers for a better service, we need trains on time and properly. This is why “We are open to all choices. We wish to know what is accessible, at what costs and with what high quality,” said Fernández Heredia. After visiting the CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles plant, he stated that the Chinese producer “seems to have a very good quality product and with prices three to four times lower than those given to us by other manufacturers.”

Among Renfe’s usual suppliers, there is no shortage of those who have taken interest in the Chinese railway industry as a means of pressure to lower the bill and speed up the schedule of the new contract. The president of Renfe himself acknowledges that “there are unknowns in regards to the approval of this product or whether or not the producer has state assist, which might make it incompatible for an award in Europe.”

Siemens plans to participate in the Renfe tender with its Velaro platform. Also expected is the ETR 1000 from Hitachi, a second generation of the Avril from Talgo or the Avelia from Alstom.

Benefits

Renfe Viajeros has budgeted for a return to profits this year after a long comeback since the pandemic. A period that has been marked by the price war maintained with Ouigo and Iryo in high speed. The reinforcement of the fleet of 125 high-speed trains responds to the need to enhance the Avant public service; recover the Avlo on the Madrid-Barcelona axis; to the expected arrival in Paris at high speed with ten new units, or the opening of lines such as Madrid-Extremadura or the Mediterranean Corridor.

The dominant operator in the network already operates with a deficit of rolling stock before the upcoming milestones, including the second phase of the liberalization of passenger transport.

In a second tender, with much less stress on supply occasions, new high-speed trains might be ordered with capability as the principle focal point. Renfe will give attention to the renewal of its present practice park, looking for the newest traits, what Álvaro Fernández Heredia calls the practice of the long run.