ITALY: Reginal operator Ferrovie della Calabria has awarded Stadler a firm order to supply and maintain a further three 950 mm gauge hydrogen multiple-units.
The order announced on January 18 has been placed under a June 2023 framework agreement awarded jointly by FdC and Sardinian transport operator ARST. This covers up to 15 trains for FdC, and included a firm order for an initial six to enter service on the 113 km Cosenza – Catanzaro line from 2026. All will be produced at Stadler’s Bussnang plant in Switzerland.
The aluminium-bodied multiple-units will have two passenger cars and a power module containing the fuel cells, hydrogen tanks and other technical equipment.
They will be 50 m long, with 89 seats and total capacity of 155 passengers. The low floors will make them fully accessible to passengers with reduced mobility, as well those with pushchairs and bicycles, and they will have an accessible toilet.
Ongoing modernisation
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The additional trains ordered from Stadler, with whom we have had a fruitful co-operation for years, are a further investment towards the company’s ongoing modernisation’, said FdC CEO Ernesto Ferraro.
FdC’s €400m investment programme is being funded by the region of Calabria as its sole shareholder, and by the national government.
Ferraro said that as well as the hydrogen trains, the programme includes modernising infrastructure and technology, raising speeds and building a hydrogen production plant ’with the ambition to become a modern and sustainable transport company within the next three years’.
