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Stadler expands with Texas rail-car order

Stadler, the Swiss-based train manufacturer, is expanding in the United States after securing a 100-million-franc ($107-million) order to supply rail cars for a commuter line in Fort Worth, Texas.

Published: 11 June 2015 09:49 CEST
Stadler expands with Texas rail-car order

TEX Rail announced this week it was buying eight diesel-powered rail cars from the company based in the canton of Thurgau for its 43-kilometre rail line to link downtown Fort Worth with the Dallas-Fort Worth airport by the end of 2018.

Because government funding is involved in the purchase of the rail cars, including backing from the US Federal Transit Administration, Stadler is obliged to comply with Buy America laws that require more than 60 percent of the cost of rail car components to be built in the US.

The deal includes an option to acquire 24 additional trains.

Stadler has already sold trains to two other transportation systems in Texas.

Peter Spuhler, Stadler’s CEO and majority shareholder, said the company was considering opening a manufacturing plant in Lewisville, Texas, to build the FLIRT (Fast Light Innovative Regional Train) cars, the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram reported.

So far the company has sold 49 rail rail cars through five contracts in the US, the ATS news agency said.

Stadler Rail is a major supplier of trains to Swiss federal Railways and other rail operators in Switzerland with four plants in the country, employing 3,000 people.

But it does significant business throughout Europe through subsidiaries in Austria, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Poland.

It also has a maintenance division in Algeria after selling 64 FLIRTs to the Algerian National Railway.

Overall, it employs more than 6,000 people at 12 locations.

The privately held company does not publish an annual report but, according to its website, its sales reached 2.5 billion francs in 2013.

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TRAVEL NEWS

Swedish government shelves plans for two fast train links

Sweden's government has called for a halt to planning to faster train links between Gothenburg and Borås and Jönköping and Hässleholm, in a move local politicians have called "a catastrophe".

Published: 23 December 2022 15:53 CET
Swedish government shelves plans for two fast train links

In an announcement slipped out just before Christmas Eve, the government said it had instructed the Swedish Transport Administration to stop all planning for the Borås to Gothenburg link, stop the ongoing work on linking Hässleholm and Lund. 

“The government wants investments made in the railway system to first and foremost make it easier for commuting and cargo traffic, because that promotes jobs and growth,” infrastructure minister Andreas Carlson said in a press release. “Our approach is for all investments in the railways that are made to be more cost effective than if the original plan for new trunk lines was followed.” 

Ulf Olsson, the Social Democrat mayor in Borås, told the TT newswire that the decision was “a catastrophe”. 

“We already have Sweden’s slowest railway, so it’s totally unrealistic to try to build on the existing railway,” he said. We are Sweden’s third biggest commuting region and have no functioning rail system, and to release this the day before Christmas Eve is pretty symptomatic.”

Per Tryding, the deputy chief executive for the Southern Sweden Chamber of Commerce, complained that the decision meant Skåne, Sweden’s most southerly county, would now have no major rail infrastructure projects. 

“Now the only big investment in Skåne which was in the plan is disappearing, and Skåne already lay far behind Gothenburg and Stockholm,” he said.

“This is going to cause real problems and one thing that is certain that it’s going to take a very long time, whatever they eventually decide. It’s extremely strange to want to first suspend everything and then do an analysis instead of doing it the other way around.”  

The government’s instructions to the transport agency will also mean that there will be no further planning on the so-called central parts of the new planned trunk lines, between Linköping and Borås and Hässleholm and Jönköping. 

Carlson said that the government was prioritising “the existing rail network, better road standards, and a build-out of charging infrastructure”.

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