DUTCH national rail operator NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) is spending around €2.5billion renewing and increasing the size of its passenger fleet.
Two large EMU orders are currently in production: CAF is building 118 ‘Civity’ EMUs known as ‘Sprinter New Generation’ (SNG) – 68 three-car and 50 four-car trains – which will replace older ‘Sprinter’ EMUs and the remaining Class 1700 electric locos, which operate with double-deck,
push-pull stock.
The first of the new four-car SNG trains numbered in the 27xx series began test running in late October 2017.
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They will enter service on routes north of Amsterdam later in 2018.
These trains are in addition to 58 new ‘Flirt’ EMUs ordered from Stadler in April 2015 as an urgent requirement because of overcrowding (and as a result not tendered for).
All the trains (33 three-car and 25 four-car EMUs) in the €280m order are now in service, having been assembled at Stadler’s Siedlce plant in Poland.
NS has now also introduced all 45 Class 186 ‘Traxx MS’ locos it bought, again as a priority
un-tendered contract in 2013/14, from Bombardier. These were needed following the withdrawal of all the ‘Fyra’ EMUs, which were returned to manufacturer Ansaldo-Breda in Italy (now owned by Hitachi). The ‘Fyra’ trains have since been sold to Italian national operator Trenitalia.
Read more in February’s issue of The RM – on sale now!
