SIEMENS and Southwest German Transport (Sweg), the operator owned by the German state of Baden-Württemberg, have officially opened a new depot for battery-powered trains in Offenburg.

The depot will maintain the fleet of 27 two-car, 120-seat Mireo Plus B battery-electric multiple-units (BEMU) ordered from Siemens by the Baden-Württemberg State Authority for Rail Vehicles (SFBW) in 2020.

As part of the depot’s opening ceremony on June 19, the Mireo Plus B also made its first public test run on the short route between Offenburg and Gengenbach.

Construction of the depot began in January 2022. It is located on a site near Offenburg main station and an existing Sweg facility, covering an area of 1350m2. Sweg is leasing the new fleet maintenance facility to Siemens Mobility for a period of 30 years.

Depot facilities include two tracks equipped with under-train inspection pits, stands to undertake work at roof level and a full-length gantry crane.

Storage, office and staff facilities are located in 350m2 and 200m2 outbuildings . Spare part storage has been minimised by deploying the Siemens Mobility MoBase e-commerce platform, which enables parts to be delivered on demand within 24 hours.

Siemens and Sweg will maintain the Mireo Plus B fleet on condition-based, predictive basis using the Cloud-based Siemens Mobility application suite Railigent X, which uses analytics to detect potential faults before they cause train failures in service.

Sweg will commence operation of a 15-year contract to operate Ortenau S-Bahn services on December 10. The contract represents around 2.5 million train-km a year on the following routes:

  • Offenburg - Freudenstadt/Hornberg
  • Offenburg - Bad Griesbach
  • Offenburg - Achern
  • Achern - Ottenhöfen and
  • Biberach (Baden) - Oberharmersbach-Riersbach.

The new Mireo Plus B BEMUs will have a range of 80km on battery power and will replace Sweg class 650 Regioshuttle DMUs on these routes, which are expected to be joined by the Renningen - Calw line following its reopening in 2025.

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