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Siemens to supply new Eurostar trains

German firm Siemens has scored a victory over a French rival with European railway operator Eurostar announcing Thursday it had ordered 10 high-speed Siemens trains.

Siemens to supply new Eurostar trains
A Siemens Velaro train owned by Deutsche Bahn. Photo: DPA

The order is a setback for French firm Alstom as rail competition begins to heat up on the continent.

“Eurostar International intends to order ten high-speed Velaro trains from Siemens for its London-Paris route,” a statement said. “Eurostar plans to invest some €800 million in the purchase of new trains and the overhaul and refurbishment of its existing train fleet,” it added.

The deal is nonetheless subject to completion of talks on final terms, said Eurostar, an international railway operator dominated by the French group SNCF.

The announcement comes as German rail operator Deutsche Bahn prepares to offer services to London for the Summer Olympics in 2012, meaning that for the first time two European railway operators will compete on a cross border route that does not connect their respective countries.

The order announced on Thursday will expand Eurostar’s current fleet of 27 trains, “whose design and technology will also be overhauled starting in 2011,” the statement said.

Around nine million passengers take the train each year on the Eurostar routes between Brussels, London and Paris.

Deutsche Bahn is to make a much-awaited test run to London on October 19, but Eurostar boss Nicolas Petrovic was quoted as saying the new and renovated trains would “bolster our position as the dominant rail operator between the United Kingdom and the continent.”

The Velaro train is one of Siemens’ flagship products, and can carry up to 900 passengers, or 20 percent more than trains now in circulation, at 320 kilometres per hour.

It would connect London and Paris in just over two hours, London and Amsterdam in less than four hours, and London and Geneva in about five hours.

Siemens has already sold the trains to railways in China, Russia and Spain, but lost out to Alstom’s AGV train in an Italian tender.

A third major rival in the market for high-speed trains is the Canadian group Bombardier, and all pitch their products as environmentally friendly transportation options.

The statement said the Siemens trains, which run on electricity, consumed the equivalent of 0.33 litres of petrol per passenger per 100 kilometres, or “just enough to fill a can of coke.”

France and Britain have fixed conditions for trains that wish to use the Channel tunnel, in particular their length, that are only met by Eurostar trains that now connect London with Brussels and Paris.

That effectively blocks rivals to Eurostar, owned by France’s state-owned rival SNCF, its Belgian counterpart SNCB and the British group London and Continental Railways. A working group has been established to review the situation, however, and Eurotunnel has called for rival railways to come forward, suggesting the possibility of offering services between London and Amsterdam or Frankfurt.

AFP/dw

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TRANSPORT

Copenhagen Metro lines reopen after two-week closure

Lines M3 and M4 of the Copenhagen Metro are back in service having reopened on Sunday, one day ahead of schedule.

Copenhagen Metro lines reopen after two-week closure

The two lines had been closed so that the Metro can run test operations before opening five new stations on the M4 line this summer.

The tests, which began on February 10th, are now done and the lines were running again as of Sunday evening, a day ahead of the original planned reopening on Monday February 26th.

“We are very pleased to be able to welcome our passengers on to our two lines M3 and M4,” head of operations with the Metro Søren Boysen said.

“The whole test procedure exceeded all expectations and went faster than expected and we can therefore get a head start on our reopening now,” he said.

Time set aside for potential repeat tests was not needed in the event, allowing the test closures to be completed ahead of time.

“Several of our many tests went better than expected and we have therefore not used all the time we needed for extra tests,” Boysen said.

The two lines serve around one million passengers every week, according to the Metro company.

READ ALSO: Copenhagen city government greenlights extension to Metro line

The new stops on the M4 line will be located south of central Copenhagen in the Valby and Sydhavn areas. The will have the names Haveholmen, Enghave Brygge, Sluseholmen, Mozarts Plads and København Syd (Copenhagen South).

The M3 and M4 lines, the newer sections of the Metro, opened in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

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