LAST MONTH, Shanghai’s public-private metro development consortium Jiushi ordered a fleet of 152 metro cars to operate the city’s Xinming ’light rail’ line, which runs 14 km southwest from the Line 1 terminus at Xin Zhuang to Ming Hang (RG 1.99 p29). They will be built to Alstom’s modular Metropolis design. Alstom is already supplying 28 six-car trains of this design for Shanghai Line 3, the Pearl line, at a cost of 203m euros.
Worth 148m euros, the Xinming line contract provides for the cars to be assembled locally by the Satco joint venture, which is 40% owned by Alstom and 60% by Shanghai Electric Corp; there is also an option for a further 148. Under the terms of a memorandum of understanding setting out the division of responsibility, Alstom’s share of the contract will be worth 109m euros. The first train is due to be delivered 28 months after the contract comes into force, with the rest following at two trains/month.
Jiushi has also awarded a letter of intent to Alstom for the supply of Urbalis signalling and train control equipment for the Pearl line, which is due to enter service within two years. Much of the work will be carried out in China by CASCO Signal Ltd (Shanghai), the joint venture between Alstom and China Railways Signal & Communication Corp which was established in 1986.
- On March 15, the German Shanghai Metro Consortium of Adtranz and Siemens dispatched from Hamburg its 50th metro trainset for use in China. The consortium delivered 16 six-car sets for Shanghai Line 1 in 1992-94 and 21 sets for Guangzhou Line 1 in 1997-99. The 50th set is the 13th in an order for 35 sets to work Shanghai Line 2.
