BULGARIA: Škoda Group has completed the first of 25 electric multiple-units just 14 months after the order was signed by Bulgaria’s Ministry of Transport & Communications.
This rapid production was ‘made possible by the full deployment of our most experienced project teams, the deep expertise of our engineers and the close co-operation of several Škoda Group production plants’, said the manufacturer’s CEO Petr Novotný when the EMU was unveiled at the company’s Plzeň factory in the Czech Republic on November 24.
The order is being fully financed by European programmes. There is a base contract worth 511·4m leva excluding VAT being financed under the Recovery & Resilience Plan which covers 20 EMUs for use on long distance services from Sofia to Burgas, Varna and Ruse, and a 127·8m leva order for a further five EMUs financed under the Transport Connectivity Programme 2021-27. The contracts include 15 years of servicing by the manufacturer, which will lease a local depot.
Adapted to Bulgarian needs
The four-car 160 km/h 25 kV 50 Hz EMUs are part of the RegioPanter family which Škoda Group has supplied to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia and Estonia.
Novotný said the Bulgarian variants are ‘significantly adapted to the customer’s needs: from a specific colour scheme and new interior design, through modifications to the information system, to the integration of signalling technology and other safety features.’
The partially low-floor multiple-units will have 333 seats, ETCS, CCTV, air-conditioning, wi-fi and passenger information displayed in Bulgarian — which uses the Cyrillic alphabet — and in English. There will be two wheelchair ramps, an accessible toilet and multifunctional spaces for passengers with reduced mobility, pushchairs and bicycles.
The EMUs are expected to offer lower operating costs and energy consumption than the older stock they will replace, and to make regional services more efficient and environmentally friendly.
The first EMU is expected to arrive in Bulgaria in January 2026, and enter passenger service from April. The rest are expected to arrive by August. Minister of Transport & Communications Grozdan Karadjov said ‘we are going to receive on time without a delay what we have paid — and what Bulgarian citizens deserve’.
‘Strategic commercial success’
Novotný said ‘Škoda is bringing to Bulgaria not only the proven RegioPanter platform, which has already run around 160 million km on European railways, but also the ability to very quickly deliver fully personalised trains at a time when the country urgently needs to modernise its fleet.’
Škoda said the total value of the order is equivalent to almost half of the Czech Republic’s annual exports to Bulgaria, and ‘represents a strategic commercial success that strengthens its position in the Balkans and confirms its ability to deliver large contracts in the face of fierce competition from European and Asian manufacturers’. It is also supplying eight four-car metro trainsets to Sofia under a separate €65m contract.
Novotný said ‘more than 50 years ago, Škoda supplied its locomotives to the Bulgarian market. Our countries have maintained long-term relations, and now we are strengthening them even further with this order. We are confident that we will win further contracts in tenders in which we participate in Bulgaria.’
