EUROPE: The Hungarian government has purchased 93 secondhand Stadler GTW electric multiple-units for €230m. Under the terms of the agreement, Stadler has bought the trains that it had originally built for Swiss Federal Railways subsidiary Thurbo. The supplier is now due to refurbish them on behalf of Hungarian railway group MÁV, which will ultimately own the fleet.
The deal announced on January 12 by Stadler and Hungary’s Minister of Construction & Transport János Lázár includes 15 years of maintenance.
The 93 trainsets were built under orders placed in 2001 and 2005, and the fleet is made up of GTW 2/6 units comprising two passenger cars and a power module, and GTW 2/8 vehicles with three passenger cars and one power car.
Refurbishment
Stadler is to equip the trains with new passenger information systems, video surveillance, and sliding steps optimised for Hungarian platform heights, onboard computers, as well as the Mirel and ETCS Baseline 4 train control systems. The powertrain is to be converted from 15 kV 16·7 Hz to 25 kV 50 Hz operation. They will also receive new paint and seat covers to accommodate the livery of national operator MÁV Személyszállítási.
The modernisation of each train is due to take 12 weeks, and the work is scheduled to start from the end of 2026. The fleet will be treated in batches over several years, with the last trains being finished in 2034. A series of first-in-class trains are to be refurbished in Switzerland, and Stadler is setting up a facility in Hungary for subsequent work on the fleet and for maintenance.
The EMUs are to be used mainly on suburban and regional lines serving Miskolc, Debrecen and Nyíregyháza. They will provide 14 000 additional seats for the national operator.
Flirt Evos carry passengers
Meanwhile, the first two four-car Flirt Evo EMUs that Stadler is building for Thurbo have undertaken passenger-carrying test runs on line S9 linking Wil and Wattwil over two weeks from January 5.
Thurbo is gathering experience from the test runs, and plans to put the Flirt Evos into regular operation on the Winterthur – Rüti line in the second half of this year.
Stadler is supplying 19 four-car and 88 three-car trainsets for the regional operator. These were ordered as part of a SFr2bn framework agreement signed in May 2022 for 286 EMUs, placed jointly by SBB, Thurbo and RegionAlps.
