FRENCH National Railways decided last month to exercise a further option for TGV Duplex double-deck trainsets, in addition to the 82 already built or on order for delivery by 2005.
The latest €305m order covers seven complete trainsets with two power cars and eight intermediate vehicles, plus another 15 sets of trailers without power cars. Alstom will be responsible for the bulk of the work, valued at €235m. Bombardier is to supply one second-class and two first-class coaches plus six bogies for each trainset. Deliveries are scheduled to run from January 2006 to December 2007.
The 15 sets of trailers are to be paired with existing TGV Réseau power cars, which will be released when the single-deck trailers are refurbished and re-formed with new 320 km/h multi-system power cars for operation on TGV Est (RG 3.03 p138).
