BRAZIL: Alstom will start manufacturing 22 six-car trainsets for São Paulo Line 6 at its nearby Taubaté factory at the beginning of 2024, Michel Boccaccio, President of Alstom Brazil & Senior Vice-President for Latin America, told Metro Report International on December 1.
The 15·3 km São Paulo metro Line 6 is under construction between Brasilândia in the northwest and São Joaquim on Line 1. Boccaccio says that Alstom has a contract with project promoter Linha Universidade, a joint venture of Acciona (47%), Societe Generale (39·7%), Stoa (12.3%) and Transdev (1%), which is responsible for construction and operation of the line.
The Line 6 contract is the latest order to be fuflfiled at Taubaté plant in São Paulo state. Boccaccio is upbeat about the site’s future prospects, and 1 500 employees are now on the payroll there.
‘We hired 900 employees at our factory in 2021 when we saw investments restarting’, he reports. ‘Besides the São Paulo metro Line 6 trainsets, we have been awarded contracts in the past two years to supply 19 monorail trainsets for Line 15, and contracts to automate Line 1 and the future Line 2 of the Belo Horizonte metro.’ Boccaccio also notes that tenders for the São Paulo – Campinas inter-city passenger project are now scheduled to be called on February 29.
The Taubaté factory has six rolling stock on its books at the end of 2023, confirms Boccaccio. In the domestic market, these are the trains for São Paulo Line 6, and EMUs for the city’s suburban rail lines 8 and 9.
The four export orders are 29 four-car metro trainsets for the Phase 2 of the Taipei Circular Line; 16 four-car trainsets for the extension of Taipei Line 7; 13 six-car trainsets for București metro Line 5, and 37 five-car trainsets for Santiago’s metro Line 7, construction of which is now underway.
Latin American potential
‘The three markets that we see the most potential in Latin America are Brazil, Chile and Mexico’, reports Boccaccio. ‘But we also have a factory in Sahagún in Mexico that serves the local and the North American market, which we inherited with the acquisition of Bombardier.
‘I am less optimistic about the Argentinian market. We are also looking at the call for tenders that Buenos Aires metro authority SBASE is just launching for the purchase of new trainsets. But I see the current Argentine economic situation as a bigger risk, it’s not yet clear if these projects will be able to get financing’, he added.
