New tech encourages Spanish CAF to fight for bullet train in the Country
DCI
The Spanish multinational of the railway sector Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) has just gained points in the dispute for the development of the Brazilian High Speed Train (HST) that will connect the cities of São Paulo, Campinas and Rio de Janeiro. The company announced yesterday it has already developed and will produce, until the end of the year, the HSTs of the Madrid-Paris line by means of a technology that will be transferred to the CAF operation in Brazil, located in Hortolândia.
One of the requirements that should be included in the rules for the public bidding of the HST in Brazil, which is still to be published, is that 60% of the components used in the production should be national with the transference of technology for local assembling. Another differential pointed by the Spanish multinational is that the technology should lower the prices of the tickets, one of the hindrances pointed by great part of the private companies interested in the project.
The company has developed a series of models of high speed trains called Oaris that foresee up to eight wagons and whose technology allows reaching 350 kilometers per hour and carrying 500 passengers. "The capacity of carrying 500 passengers at a maximum speed of 350 kilometers per hour allows reducing the prices of the tickets", says the announcement of the company. The first units are under the final stage of production at the headquarters of the company in Beasain, in Spain. According to CAF, this is the first high speed train with 100% of Spanish technology, from the mechanical part to the electric and electronic components.
The participation in the public bidding for the HST between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo is among the international plans of the company that has invested R$ 200 million (US$ 114.3 million) in the erection of a plant in Brazil and has nearly one thousand direct employees in the country. The operation will deliver 100 trains and 750 passenger cars ordered by the CPTM (São Paulo Metropolitan Train Company) and by the Subway of São Paulo this year. "Our plant in Hortolândia is already one of the most modern industrial plants of the sector in the world. Therefore, we have the intelligence and the infrastructure to bring to and make the Oaris series in Brazil with all the technology it comprises which is the most advanced technology for high speed trains", said Paulo Fontenele, President of the company.