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Subterráneos de Buenos Aires (SBASE) will soon launch a tender for the purchase of new trains for line B: the call for tenders will be approved by the board in the next few days. There will be 16 trains, intended to replace the Mitsubishi fleet. The risk of not considering the retirement of the CAF
6000. What the new trains will be like, in detail.
With several months of delay with respect to what was originally announced, Subterráneos de Buenos Aires (SBASE) will soon launch a tender for the purchase of new trains for line B.
These are 16 brand new trains, intended to replace the Mitsubishi fleet - acquired second-hand in the 1990s from the Tokyo Metro - which is currently the oldest in the Subway: its manufacture dates back to between 1954 and 1965.
SBASE sources confirmed to enelSubte that “everything is practically ready to launch the tender.” The board of directors is expected to approve the call in the next few days, formally starting the process.
Dynamic gauge tests were carried out according to the dimensions of the new trains to be acquired.
If the operation is successful, it would be the first time in almost 50 years that line B receives brand new rolling stock: the last new trains incorporated were the Siemens-FM at the end of the 1970s.
The tender documents to be published – the preliminary draft of which was exclusively revealed by this newspaper more than a year ago – include some modifications made as a result of the public consultation (“data room”) that took place last summer. Although SBASE had estimated to launch the tender in March, the delays in this process forced a significant delay in the original deadlines.
SBASE confirmed that “various top-level national and international interested parties” participated in the public consultation process as potential bidders.
According to this media, one of the strongest candidates to participate in the tender is a long-time supplier of the Subway: the French company Alstom, which would do so through its subsidiary in Brazil. However, the possibility of competition is not ruled out, since SBASE at the time disseminated the call among the embassies of various European and North American countries, as well as China, Japan and South Korea.
It is worth remembering that the possibility of buying new trains for line B has been under analysis since 2018. Although the initiative registered some timid progress at the beginning of 2020, it was frozen throughout the pandemic. Last year, SBASE reactivated the project in the face of the worsening of the asbestos crisis - Mitsubishis are one of the eight affected fleets in the network - a conflict that is still ongoing with an open ending amid the series of union strikes for that reason.
What the new trains will be like
The 16 trains will be made up of six cars each (96 cars). The trains will not have intermediate cabins or doors blocking the passage, so internal circulation will be free from end to end of the train, just like in the Alstom Series 300.
The trains will take power from the rigid catenary using a pantograph and not from the third rail -as with the CAF 6000-, so the latter would no longer be used.
As for their dimensions, the cars will have a width of 3.10 metres, similar to that of the trains on the Mitre, Sarmiento, Urquiza and Roca lines. This means that the new trains will take full advantage of the “railway” gauge available on line B, which allows the circulation of much wider units than the rest of the subway lines (which use a “tram” gauge of 2.60 m). In recent weeks, dynamic tests have been carried out with a “gauge mask” on a Mitsubishi train to verify this issue (see detail in attached photo).
This is a particularity of this line, inherited from its railway origins, which allows for greater transport capacity and greater comfort for passengers and which has been systematically wasted over the last 30 years due to the incorporation of used trains that did not fully comply with the specifications of the line: it should be remembered that the Mitsubishi trains are 2.80 m wide and the CAF 6000 are slightly narrower (2.77 m): both had to have skirts added to compensate for the distance between the train and the platform.
An insufficient purchase?
The announced number of 16 trains is less than the 25 formations that had been initially mentioned. Although the 16 are sufficient to replace the aging Mitsubishi fleet, they are not enough to replace the CAF 6000, with which the new trains will eventually coexist.
Given the timeframes of the tender and the delivery times for the new trains - which may extend beyond what was planned - and the fact that the CAF 6000s were already purchased a decade ago and have accumulated 25 years of service, it would be prudent for the specifications to contemplate the possibility of extending the purchase.
This modality would involve placing an initial order for a certain number of trains, with the option of expanding the order later, when necessary. This is not a new modality for the Subte: years ago SBASE bought 120 Alstom Series 300 cars and then expanded the purchase by 50% (60 more units), which allowed it to have a fleet sufficient to cover the entire H line and part of the D line.
Otherwise, there is a risk that the new fleet will end up being nothing more than a "short blanket", as well as being contrary to the standardisation of rolling stock, which is advisable for technical and economic reasons.
EXTENSION | INTERNATIONAL | ACQUISITION OF ROLLING STOCK FOR LINE B
Type of Work: Machinery and tools
Client: BUENOS AIRES SUBWAYS SE
Tender No: 234/2023
Location: City of Buenos Aires
Opening date: 09/24/2024 at 12:00 PM
Official budget: US$ 155,000,000.00 |
