Stadler has been awarded a contract to deliver a total of 25 hydrogen-powered trains. In line with two framework agreements, the train manufacturer will supply ten of these to the Sardinian railway operator Azienda Regionale Sarda Trasporti (ARST) and 15 to Ferrovie della Calabria (FdC), the railway operator in the region of Calabria. In so doing, Stadler is the first train manufacturer worldwide to supply narrow-gauge hydrogen trains, further details of which can be found in a press release. Moreover, following on from the FLIRT H2 for passenger transport in North America, the company based in the St.GallenBodenseeArea is now also supplying hydrogen trains to Europe for the first time.
After two public tenders in June, the contracts have now been signed with Stadler. In addition to design and production at Stadler’s headquarters in Bussnang in the canton of Thurgau, the contracts also cover delivery and maintenance operations. Both projects are being financed by Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan, with the corresponding funding obtained from the Next Generation EU program, which was launched in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Stadler has maintained a long-standing, innovative partnership with both ARST and FdC, according to Ansgar Brockmeyer, Executive Vice President Marketing & Sales at Stadler. “We are proud to be working together to drive forward the decarbonization of rail transport in Italy. The new narrow-gauge trains with hydrogen propulsion are a world premiere and will pioneer sustainable rail transport on narrow-gauge lines worldwide”, he explains.
As Stadler announced in a separate press release, ÖBB-Holding in Austria has awarded Stadler a contract to deliver up to 120 battery-powered trains. These are designed to replace the current diesel fleet in operation on the Austrian railways.
