THE State Institute for Rail Vehicles Baden-Württemberg (SFBW) has awarded Siemens Mobility a €300m contract to supply 28 three-car Mireo regional EMUs for Digital Rail Germany’s (DSD) Digital Node Stuttgart (DKS) pilot project.
The trains will have complete DSD equipment, a first for Siemens, including ETCS Level 2, and will be equipped for Automatic Train Operation (ATO) at Grade of Automation 2 (GoA2).
The framework agreement also includes a 10-year maintenance contract with the option for a 20-year extension. The trains will be delivered between November 2025 and April 2026.
Commissioning of the EMUs will take place on the DKS network, which is restricted to trains fitted with ETCS. The Mireo trains will be capable of operating on steep gradients and will initially operate in the Stuttgart area as part of the DKS pilot project. Operation will subsequently extend to lines throughout Baden-Württemberg and neighbouring states as the availability of ETCS increases. It is also planned to approve the trains for operation in Austria and for cross-border routes to Switzerland, including to Basle.
FRMCS
Siemens will equip the trains with a Train Integrity Monitoring System (TIMS) as well as the Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS) for the first time in Germany. “This digital equipment allows for more tightly-scheduled, energy-saving operation through digitally predictive signalling and driving instructions,” Siemens says. The DSD equipment will be supplied according to the CCS TSI 2023 with system version SV2.0 until 2030 and then SV3.0.
As part of the national DSD rollout, including the DKS pilot project, existing trains purchased by SFBW and leased to operators must be retrofitted with DSD onboard equipment, which will require them to be taken out of service. The programme is expected take at least 10 years to complete and implementation will require a high degree of flexibility due to uncertainty over the timescales for completing infrastructure work and carrying out the DSD retrofit programme.
“The goal is to be able to swap trains and provide replacements to operators while their trains are being retrofitted,” Siemens says. “The Mireo trains can also be used as a redundancy fleet as needed.”
“Baden-Württemberg is continuing to be a trailblazer in the digitisation of railways,” says Mr Berthold Friess, head of the state’s Ministry of Transport. “Over the next 10 years, the 28 ordered Mireo regional trains will primarily serve to keep passenger operations in the state as convenient and comfortable as possible while the existing fleet is being retrofitted with DSD technology. Siemens Mobility is now the second industrial partner for integrating complete DSD equipment in our trains. This will significantly accelerate the development of a fully digitised rail system in Germany.”
The new trains will have 218 fixed seats and step-free access. They will be fitted with onboard passenger Wi-Fi.
For more data on European fleet orders, subscribe to IRJ Pro.
