Canadian City Of Calgary Orders 60 S200 Light Rail Vehicles From Siemens

BY Editor

Canadian city of Calgary Orders 60 S200 light rail vehicles From Siemens – Sep 13, 2013–Berlin, Germany (Techreleased) – The Canadian city of Calgary has awarded Siemens an order to supply 60 S200 light rail vehicles, worth more than 135 million Euros. The LRVs will be built at the Siemens factory in Sacramento, USA and are due to be delivered starting in summer 2015. The full order is to be completed by December 2016. This is the first order for the new light rail generation from Siemens.

Siemens S200 Light Rail Vehicles

The Canadian city of Calgary has awarded Siemens an order to supply 60 S200 light rail vehicles, worth more than 135 million Euros. The LRVs will be built at the Siemens factory in Sacramento, USA and are due to be delivered starting in summer 2015. The full order is to be completed by December 2016. This is the first order for the new light rail generation from Siemens.

“The 60 LRVs will continue our more than thirty-year success story in Calgary. The new generation of vehicles delivers exactly what this modern and constantly growing Canadian metropolis needs. The LRVs are energy-efficient and provide passengers with even higher levels of comfort and safety,” says Jochen Eickholt, CEO Siemens Rail Systems.

The vehicles have been designed especially for the harsh climate conditions typical for Canada. The coupler heaters ensure the vehicles can operate in ice and snow. Cables and connectors have been dimensioned so that they withstand the extreme weather conditions. The electrically heated windshield, triple-pane side windows with low solar transmittance and improved insulation reduce thermal losses by more than 20 percent compared to previous models. This also results in reduced power consumption.

Energy-saving operation of the S200 LRVs is ensured by the weight-reduced propulsion system that allows the recovery of braking energy as well as by the LED lighting that requires up to 40 percent less energy than conventional fluorescent lighting. The S200 LRVs have eight doors that allow barrier-free access for wheelchair users and passengers with baby carriages or bikes. The vehicles are produced at the Siemens factory in Sacramento where around 80 percent of the electricity required in production is supplied by a two-megawatt photovoltaic plant. This helps to save about 1,470 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.

Calgary is the third largest city in Canada and its population has grown since 2006 by one quarter to over one million. As the population has grown, so has the number of passengers using the light rail system. Passenger volumes have increased by 50 percent in the last ten years alone. Today the LRT system is the busiest in North America and the second busiest in the world, transporting more than 300,000 passengers every day. The network is around 56 kilometers long and has 44 stations. The fleet consists entirely of Siemens vehicles and, in total, 156 LRVs are in service in Calgary.

Technical data of the eight-unit S200 for Calgary, Canada: