A multi-national effort to produce new units

Construction and testing of the 58 Stadler trains for Greater Anglia will be completed over a number of sites in a number of countries.

Stadler Commercial Project Manager Silvio Gemperli explained: “Winterthur [Switzerland] is where all the bogies for all units are constructed. “Bussnang [Switzerland] is where the car body of the EMUs and the final assembly of the EMUs takes place. Final assembly of the four-car BMU sets one to three is here, and the powerpacks for sets one to eight, which allows for engineering interaction.

“Erlen [Switzerland] is the commissioning centre. When a train is ‘wedded’ to its wheels, it then starts commissioning. The ‘wedding’ takes one day.”

Gemperli told RAIL that the car bodies will be fitted out at the company’s Hungarian factory at Szolnok. The very final assembly and commissioning of all 14 three-car BMUs as well as 755404-755424 will also be completed there.

He added that those not built in Bussnang will be built in Valencia (Spain). Construction of bodyshells had also begun in Siedlce (Poland), and these will be moved to Szolnok in due course.

Testing starts in July, with 16 trains involved using eight teams at seven locations - including Poland, Switzerland, Germany and Romania. Gemperli said the plan is for eight four-car BMUs, three three-car BMUs and five EMUs.

Greater Anglia Joint Project Manager Steve Mitchell told RAIL that the first trains will go for type testing, and then to Poland for fitting out.