Alstom and TMH to modernize Russian trains

Alstom Transport, subsidiary of French giant, Alstom has signed a 1 billion euro contract with Russia’s TransMashHolding for 200 freight locomotives for Russian Railways

The preliminary contract for joint development of the EP20 electric trains and production of components was signed in 2010 between Alstom and TMH for future supply to RZD.  In addition to the supply contract, both companies signed an agreement for a joint construction of electric passenger trains in 2012. The production is the next step of the Russian-French partnership on electric train construction, Alstom president, Patrick Kron, told journalists on Monday. “We have recently made much progress with our Russian partners, namely TMH. This is a technological partnership in industry.  Together, we have developed a new model of locomotive for Russian Railways” He said that the new model of the EP20 train had been presented to the company’s clients 10 days ago in Paris during the conference on “Key technologies of France in 2015-2020 and Russian-French technological cooperation in the field of energy efficiency”. These trains will be produced at Novocherkassk Electric Train Building Plant, which owned by THM. Alstom's director of communications in Russia and the CIS, Isabelle Tourancheau, said that the mass production of the new train will start after trials with another train concept in the pipeline  “The electric trains are now being tested and the batch production will be launched in 2012. The company's involvement is our drive system. The second electric trains will be the 2EC5, a cargo train, which we plan to present in the spring of 2012.  Testing will take place a bit later,” TMH and Alstom will begin the production of new generation long-haul electric freight  locomotives using the 2EC5 induction drive at  the Novocherkassk  facility. Alstom in cooperation with RZhD has presented a high-speed train Allegro in 2010 on the route between Helsinki and St. Petersburg, which covers the distance of 380 kilometers in 3.5 hours and can reach the speed of up to 220 kilometers per hour. In addition to cooperation in transport sector in Russia, Alstom plans to produce the emergency diesel generators for the modernization of existing turbo-generators at Russian nuclear power plants.