The agreement is an extension of an existing contract awarded to CAF last year and includes feet maintenance for a term of 33 years.
The existing contract was awarded in June 2021, when the German transport authorities VRR (Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr) and NWL awarded CAF the contract to supply 63 battery-powered trains and the associated fleet maintenance services from 2025 to 2058.
NWL and VRR are two of three local rail transport authorities and responsible for managing rail transport in Germany's most populated federal state, North Rhine-Westphalia, home to almost 18 million inhabitants, with the state capital being Düsseldorf.
NWL commissions a railway network covering close to 2,000 km of track, on 58 different lines. The 10 new units CAF will supply will run on lines RB68 and RB76, located in an area between cities such as Münster and Gütersloh.
These units will boast cutting edge rail technology as they are battery-powered trains which can also run on tracks with a catenary, as an alternative to the current diesel units. The new trains are envisaged to be in operation over the course of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, forming part of the plans implemented by the German federal government intended to decarbonize rail transport.
The agreement also represents another milestone in the CAF Group's success in the discerning German market and adds to other projects currently underway in the country, such as the supply of 51 LRVs for the Ruhrbahn operator in Essen, the extension of eight trams for the city of Freiburg, as well as the recent award of the contract for the manufacture of 22 LRVs for the city of Bonn.