SNCF Exercising Entire Option Involving 40 Alstom Euroduplex Very High Speed Train Sets

Regulatory News:

SNCF has confirmed it was exercising the entire option for 40 Euroduplex trains, Alstom’s (Paris:ALO) double-decker very high-speed train, called for in a contract signed by both companies in 2007. The contract involved a firm batch of 55 trains and an option on another 40, now fully confirmed¹. Delivery of the 40 trains is expected to be spread over the period from 2015 to 2019.

Extending train capacity is the most appropriate response both in economic and operational terms for handling increases in passenger traffic and saturated corridors on the high-speed network. The latest Euroduplex trains will hold up to 560 seats in total. They are fully compliant with European interoperability technical standards (TSI², ERTMS³). The trains also feature drive equipment suitable for the various power voltages in use in Europe; this allows them to travel across the continent’s entire network.

To date, there are 21 Euroduplex trains travelling on France’s high-speed lines (Paris to the East, Paris to the South-East, Rhine to Rhône) as well as Germany’s (Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart). In the near future, the trains will also travel in Spain (between Paris and Barcelona) and Switzerland (between Paris and Zurich). Since December 2012, they have already travelled over 6 million kilometres.

Every day, there are 1,000 people working on high speed sector within nine Alstom facilities located in France, generating 4,000 jobs throughout the country.
The La Rochelle facility – which manages the whole project - performs the studies, the assembling and the fitting of the passenger cars. The other sites involved are Belfort for the locomotives, Reichshoffen for the end car bodyworks, Ornans for the traction motors, Le Creusot for the bogies, Petit-Quevilly for the drive generator, Tarbes for the power connectors, Villeurbanne for the on-board computer systems and passenger information, and Saint-Ouen for the overall design.

About Alstom
Alstom is a global leader in the world of power generation, power transmission and rail infrastructure and sets the benchmark for innovative and environmentally friendly technologies. Alstom builds the fastest train and the highest capacity automated metro in the world, provides turnkey integrated power plant solutions and associated services for a wide variety of energy sources, including hydro, nuclear, gas, coal and wind, and it offers a wide range of solutions for power transmission, with a focus on smart grids. The Group employs 93,000 people in around 100 countries. It had sales of over €20 billion and booked close to €24 billion in orders in 2012/13.

¹ Of those 40 options, 30 had already been duly ordered from Alstom in March 2012. This newly exercised option provides a firm order for 10 additional trains for an amount of about €300m.
² Technical Specifications for Interoperability
³ European Rail Traffic Management System