GERMANY: Stuttgarter Strassenbahnen has awarded Stadler a contract to supply a further 40 light rail vehicles from 2025.
The order announced on October 5 will take SSB’s fleet of Stadler LRVs to 100 vehicles of various types supplied since 2009, plus three rack railcars. There are options for up to 30 more LRVs.
The two-section high-floor bidirectional S-DT8.16 vehicles for the Stadtbahn network will be around 40 m long and 2 650 mm wide with capacity to carry more than 250 passengers.
SSB Technical Director Thomas Moser said ‘the Europe-wide tender has found a well-known and competent partner in Stadler’, as the Swiss company ‘already knows the demands and needs of the SSB and its passengers’.
Meanwhile, the first of the three ZT4.2 railcars being supplied by Stadler for SSB’s 2·2 km metre-gauge Riggenbach rack line known as the ‘Zacke’ entered passenger service on October 8, with the other two expected to follow later this year.
Features included a multi-purpose area for prams and luggage, along with a wheelchair space.
Moser said the line’s stops could not be made level, because ‘the mountain we run up remains as steep as it is’, but the platforms would be rebuilt to provide step-free boarding.
