Over the next two years Tülomsaş will assemble at least 50 PowerHauls at its plant in Eskisehir, 20 of which will be built for Turkish State Railways (TCDD) and the remaining 30 for regional export markets. GE says it is investing more than $US 150m in the design and development of the PowerHaul range and the technology transfer to Turkey. The partners aim to increase PowerHaul production at the site to 50-100 units annually, of which 30-70 will be for export markets.
GE signed a memorandum of understanding with Tülomsaş in 2008 to form a strategic partnership to assemble PowerHauls in Turkey. The two companies concluded a license agreement in December 2009, and Tülomsaş assembled a demonstrator which underwent trials with TCDD before being shipped to Britain last October. This locomotive is expected to enter service with a British freight operator.
The PowerHaul design made its debut in Britain in 2009 with Freightliner, which so far has taken delivery of 19 locomotives built at GE's Erie plant in the United States.
The locomotives for TCDD will be the European-specification PH37ACai model, which was unveiled by GE at InnoTrans in Berlin last September. The first customer for the design is Germany's Heavy Haul Power International (HHPI), which is working with GE to secure approval for operation in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The HHPI locomotives are among those being assembled by Tülomsaş.
