The government accepted the proposal of the Ministry of Technology and Industry (TIM), according to the government decision published on Thursday, on the procurement of 39 plus optionally 10 new, modern, control cars, including at least 7 long-distance trains and 50 Siemens Vectron locomotives, mainly for them (but also for use in other trains) decided on the burden of the framework contract concluded this year – announced Dávid Vitézy, TIM’s state secretary responsible for transport, on his social media page.
According to the politician’s post, this purchase will solve the problem of long-distance vehicles on all domestic long-distance lines, so that they can be used in international traffic as well. According to their ideas, in the circular IC connecting Budapest to Miskolc, Nyíregyháza, Debrecen, and Szolnok, to Pécs, Kecskemét to Szeged, Győr, mixed with ÖBB trains to Vienna, the southern shore of Balaton and, after electrification of the northern coastline, to the northern shore, Prague, Warsaw, Belgrade and, in the future, even to the southern states of the Balkans, these new, closed shuttle trains will run, and in the other directions, which require a smaller capacity, trains that contain only the (IC+, CAF) cars of a similar level of service.
According to the government decision, the public procurement procedure must be started this year for the 39+10 trains, which will mean a total of more than 380 cars. This means the replacement of more than two-thirds of our entire MÁV-Start IC long-distance fleet.
The state secretary reminded us that the government has financed the construction of 92 IC+ cars in recent years (15 are still in production in Szolnok), this is supplemented by some other more modern cars (for example, the renovated CAFs), but all of these are few, two-thirds of the fleet is outdated. “As we saw this summer, and I also wrote about it here, MÁV-Start is not yet able to produce vehicles of the standard expected in the 21st century everywhere in domestic and international long-distance traffic. So we have to take action because the number of passengers has started to rise significantly, and following the railway developments of the past decade, IC flights are also competitive in time in many respects,” said Dávid Vitézy.
According to the government decision, 39+10 closed long-distance shuttle assemblies will arrive. According to the plans, some of these will consist of 9 cars, the rest will consist of 7 cars, including a control car, so that they can easily and quickly change direction at the railway stations. The structure and assembly of the new trains will therefore essentially be similar to the RailJets, which are also popular in our country and operate between Budapest and Vienna, and are operated by the Austrian Österreichische Bundesbahnen (ÖBB) – but the goal is to manufacture them in Hungary as much as possible – he pointed out. “In order that the procurement does not suddenly burden the central budget, we plan to purchase services, which includes the maintenance of the locomotive and the cars,” explained the state secretary.
The service will be used by the national transport organizer currently being established on the basis of VPE Vasúti Pálykapacitás-elosztó Kft. and passed on to MÁV-Start, the tender will be issued jointly. The ROSCO structure, which orders vehicles on the basis of availability, in the form of a service – according to EU legislation – is also suitable if, in the future, after the mandatory competition after 2033, there are more providers than today or providers other than MÁV-Start in rail passenger transport, another company will also be able to operate the trains on behalf of the customer – explained Dávid Vitézy, adding: the services of the trains meet the needs of today’s passengers in every way, they will have comfortable seats, modern passenger information, air conditioning, 1st, and 2nd class, and a dining car.
MÁV-Start has already concluded the framework contract for the purchase of 115 Vectron locomotives, of which a decision has now been made to finance 50. Here, the source of financing comes from Eurofima, the European Railway Rolling Stock Financing Company, the government approved MÁV’s borrowing in its decision, the politician said.
MTI
