Bombardier’s new double-deck EMU, the Regio 2N, carried its very first passengers during a trial run to mark a year since the start of dynamic testing.
Officials and members of the international press were the first to travel on the new train, riding onboard one of the first completed vehicles on a test track at Bombardier’s Crespin factory in the Nord-Pas de Calais region.
The train is one of 129 destined for the French regions of Aquitane, Brittany, Centre, Nord-Pas de Calais, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Rhône – Alpes.
In February 2010, SNCF signed a framework contract for up to 860 double-deck EMUs in an order worth €7 billion.
Bombardier will soon up production of the Regio 2N to two trains a month from October and then three trains a month from January, but with production due to end between 2015 and 2016, Bombardier is hoping options are exercised for more units to sustain its work in Crespin.
During a ceremony to launch the Regio 2N, Jean-Michel Bodin, vice president for transportation for the Region Centre and vice president for the transportation committee of the Association of French Regions, spoke about the popularity of the regional TER trains and need to invest in more rolling stock in the coming years.
Nine of the modular articulated EMUs have been built for testing prior to approval.
Bombardier has said that testing is now 90 per cent complete, a year after the company took its first train to Velim in the Czech Republic to carry out dynamic trials on the centre’s 13 kilometre oval test track.
Further test runs will be conducted from January 2014 in the Rhône – Alpes region to check operational reliability before full commissioning, which is expected later in the year between April and May.
President of Bombardier Lutz Bertling said: “The increasing use of regional trains in France reflects the regions’ successful efforts to facilitate sustainable and comfortable mobility of their populations.”
The Regio 2N will be built in configurations ranging from six to 10 cars, with the longer train stretching 135m. The maximum speed of the units will also vary between 160 km/h and 200 km/h.
The design, manufacture and testing of the majority of key components, including the bogies, has all been carried out at Crespin.
The Regio 2N is made up of a combination of single and double-deck carriages. Extra space is created in the double decks as the majority of the systems are being installed on the single carriages, increasing capacity by 35 per cent compared to typical double-deck carriages.
A portion of the testing process is being carried out on Bombardier’s Labo Train – a specialist train simulator that allows engineers to set out the bare systems for each car of a train to simulate faults safely and conduct testing without experiencing some of accessibility issues that can be created once the equipment is inside the train.
