The virtual recreations of the new Renfe trains shown in recent months are beginning to come true at the Alstom plant. The company has built a new line at its plant in Santa Perpètua de Mogoda through which the 201 six-car trains that Renfe has ordered for Rodalies de Catalunya and Cercanías from the rest of Spain will gradually pass through. Three new convoys will leave from there every month when series production begins, once the first trains have been validated, foreseeably throughout the coming year.
For that there are still a few months to go, but in that same place the engineers are already subjecting the first completely empty aluminum boxes to all kinds of tests, as can be seen in the image. The work has already passed from the design offices to the industrial plant, where mixed teams work side by side and have already received the technical and political approval of Renfe. One of the wagons has even already reached the first vinyl tests. A few days ago, the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, supervised the evolution of Renfe trains on site together with the president of the public company, Raül Blanco, guided by the president of Alstom in Spain, Leopoldo Maestu.
The wagons that have first taken shape are those of one floor, with the entrance at ground level, which will be located at the ends of the train. In the center there will be two double-decker carriages, designed to absorb a greater passenger capacity, just over 900 people. Both the single- and double-deck trains are based on the Coradia Stream model platform that has been in production for months for the Luxembourg railway company, with an order for 22 three-car trains and 12 six-car trains, of which half have been delivered.
“The interior configuration, on the other hand, will be totally different”, points out the director of the Santa Perpètua industrial center, Cristina Andériz, who highlights the importance of incorporating an innovative welding robot into the manufacturing process that allows pieces to be joined horizontally. and vertically. It is a unique automation system in the railway industry and its use is not reducing staff, quite the contrary.
Alstom right now registers record levels of workers and is having difficulties finding specialized personnel for a plant that is at the limit of its production as Renfe’s manufacturing process coincides with the completion of the order for fifty trains for lines 1 and 3 of Barcelona metro and for the Singapore and Santo Domingo subways, in addition to those previously mentioned for Luxembourg. In the not too distant future, the three units for the extension of the Trambesòs and the ten convoys of the shuttle train to the airport operated by Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC) will also be manufactured.
Renfe’s order, worth 1.8 billion euros, is the largest. The Government itself defines it as “a historic contract that turns years without investment”, but fears are beginning to spread about what could happen with the planned renewal of the train fleet if the tenant of La Moncloa changes after the July 23 elections.
Precisely at the Renfe board of directors this week, UGT raised its concern about the future of these trains if there is a change of government. Proof of this is the null investment of the PP between 2012 and 2018 in the purchase of new Cercanías and medium-distance trains, which contrasts with the 3,500 million allocated to the order of 406 trains, which include an average of 32 distance awarded this week to CAF.
