GERMANY: Railpool Lokservice has opened ‘Europe’s most modern locomotive workshop’ at Hamburg Billbrook. ‘We wanted a workshop of superlatives and we built it’, said Managing Director Christoph Engel.
‘Right from the start, the aim of the construction project was to provide our customers with the best possible maintenance quality’, Engel said at the opening on September 11. ‘A greenfield site enabled us to plan the space in such a way that work processes were massively accelerated and simplified.’
The 15 000 m2 site features spacious halls for the maintenance or overhaul of seven locomotives at once, with ‘state-of-the-art’ equipment, extensive storage and future-proof office and training areas. Energy-efficiency measures include a connection to the district heating network, a green roof and a 60 kW photovoltaic system.
Construction took 14 months and cost €20m. The project was supported with Hamburg Green Roof Funding from the Hamburg Investment & Development Bank, and funding for planned electrification of the track to the workshop hall has been committed by the Companies for Resource Protection programme.
Railpool expects to create up to 40 new jobs as well as training apprentices.
‘With the new built structure, we are underlining our willingness to invest in the maintenance of locomotives and thus further strengthening the reliability of our full-service rental business’, said Railpool CEO Torsten Lehnert. ‘By expanding our maintenance capacities, especially for heavy maintenance, we can ensure the quality of our vehicles even better. As the largest rail vehicle rental company in Germany, we are very proud to open the workshop doors for full operation today.’
