GERMANY: VIAS Rail is to lease eight Stadler Flirt3 XL electric multiple-units from Alpha Trains for use on a Frankfurt – Koblenz service along the right bank of the Rhein which is to be introduced in December 2025. There is an option for one more EMU.
VIAS Rail will operate the new service RE19 under a contract awarded by Rhein-Main transport authority RMV and Rheinland-Pfalz’s SPNV-Nord.
The four-car EMUs will have 230 seats and a capacity of 512 passengers. There will be space for 12 bicycles, four prams and two wheelchairs. They will have six doors on each side, with the end cars have two doors per side and the centre cars one.
‘We are looking forward to the long-term partnership with our new customer, VIAS Rail’, said Alpha Trains Managing Director Thomas Schmidt on January 22.
‘Co-operation up to the signing of the contract was extremely professional and committed and showed that our companies are on the same wavelength. These are the best preconditions for being able to implement this challenging project together — there was only one month between the legally binding award of the transport contract and the signing of the leasing contract’.
