The Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund announced on Wednesday (28 February) that German locomotive manufacturing company Siemens Mobility and Polish locomotive leasing company CARGOUNIT have signed a framework contract for the purchase of 90 Vectron MS locomotives.
CARGOUNIT has also ordered 10 Smartrons, with first deliveries of locomotives planned for 2025, the Three Seas Initiative Fund noted in a press release.
“With our Vectron locomotives, Cargounit is paving the way for sustainable, efficient, and cross-border rail transport across Europe. The new orders reaffirm Cargounit’s trust in one of the most modern and at the same time most environmentally friendly universal locomotive available on the European market today,” said Albrecht Neumann, CEO of Rolling Stock Siemens Mobility GmbH.
CARGOUNIT’s Vectron locomotives have been operating both in freight transport, but also with passengers including the BWE trains (Warsaw-Berlin Express), operated jointly by PKP Intercity and DB Fernverkehr.
“Today is a momentous day in the continued cooperation between CARGOUNIT and Siemens Mobility, and on behalf of the CARGOUNIT Supervisory Board I would wish to congratulate the two companies’ respective teams on the conclusion of this landmark transaction,” said Cameron Cook, Chairman of CARGOUNIT.
The framework agreement covers the purchase of 30 Vectron and 10 Smartron locomotives with an additional option to purchase up to 60 Siemens Mobility vehicles. With the new order, CARGOUNIT has a total of 66 Vectrons and 18 Smartrons in its fleet, and the number of Siemens locomotives could increase to nearly 150 vehicles, the Three Seas Initiative Fund said.
“CARGOUNIT was the Three Seas Initiative investment Fund’s first investment, with the fund’s ownership interest commencing in 2020,” Mr Cook added. “The company has gone from strength to strength over the last four years with significant enhancements having been made to the fleet in terms of operational and environmental efficiency, and the development of an ever-expanding geographical footprint across the Three Seas countries and beyond. We look forward to the delivery of these locomotives over the coming years, and the continued successful growth of the CARGOUNIT business.”
The ordered Vectron MS locomotives have a power output of 6.4 megawatts (MW) in AC and 6.0 MW in DC, and are planned to be equipped with an ETCS system that complies with current specifications (Baseline 3). The new Vectron MS locomotives for CARGOUNIT are planned to operate across Europe, including Poland, Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria. Smartron locomotives are planned to be present in Germany, Bulgaria or Romania.
The cooperation between Siemens Mobility and CARGOUNIT began in 2018 with the purchase of a single Vectron MS locomotive. The company then purchased an additional five vehicles in 2019 with funding from the Center for EU Transport Projects, and two years later, at TRAKO 2021, it signed a contract for the delivery, along with maintenance, of another 30 Vectrons to run services in Central and Western Europe.
