Talgo presents its best in class offer to improve rail transport in Bulgaria: “Intercity BG”

Talgo unveiled the key technical points of its offering for 20 new trains based on its Talgo Intercity technological platform.

Designed and constructed in the European Union, the vehicles will be based upon the same technical standards already chosen by Deutsche Bahn (DB) and Danske Statsbaner (DSB) to operate in cross border services and in up to four European countries.

Under the Intercity BG project, each train will offer around 390 seats per unit and will not only boast unique passenger comfort thanks to its wide bodyshell but will also provide the world’s best accessibility with a single-deck, 100% low-floor access at platform level of 760 mm and good accessibility for lower station platforms as compared with other coaches, increasing the autonomy of persons with reduced mobility and also enhancing the whole user experience by making boarding and debarking operations faster for all passengers.

The Intercity BG lightweight structure will improve the trains power-to-weight ratio reducing not only energy consumption but, crucially cutting acceleration and braking times. This will be especially helpful under the operating conditions set in Bulgaria, with a web-shaped network of comparatively low length density (similar to that of Spain) but many intermediate stops, and up to 80% of single-tracked sections which increase crossings and can put to test train timetables.

With a push-pull configuration, the train features a single conventional locomotive, intermediate passenger coaches, and a cabcar in the opposite end of the train. This is the ideal solution to get all the traditional benefits of lightweight, conventional trains but without the need of locomotive for shunting operations.

As part of the Talgo 230 technological platform, the Intercity BG trains are born by design as fully EU-interoperable units and are the ideal choice to serve the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) corridors within Bulgaria but also with the possibility to expand operations in neighbouring countries. Other units of this product family are set to operate in Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and Switzerland.

Talgo has a 82 years’ experience and is the sole European train manufacturer fully specialized in the design, manufacturing and whole lifecycle maintenance of conventional trains which are also high-speed-ready: delivered as Intercity trains for a maximum commercial operating speed of 200 km/h which are nevertheless based on a platform for 230 km/h -and can be easily upgraded into very high-speed units if the need arises in the future.

The Intercity BG trains could be also equipped with Talgo’s newest intelligent maintenance solutions. Already in service in the Haramain rail project in Saudi Arabia, the T-Smart system joins remote control and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to enhance maintenance operations, increasing the role of predictive actions, reducing that of the corrective measures which thus become redundant, and cutting not only the total lifecycle costs but also the train turnaround times on depots.

About Talgo 230
The Talgo 230 platform is based on the same technological foundations that have established the Spanish train producer’s intercity trains as an international reference. They are light vehicles boasting independently rotating, self-guided rolling assemblies, able to maximize capacity and which can mount natural tilting and/or automatic track-gauge changing systems.

The Talgo 230 platform was selected by the German federal operator Deutsche Bahn (DB) in 2019 with a framework agreement for the manufacture of up to 100 trains, with two blocks already ordered of 79 units in total of which the first ones are already under certification in Germany. DB is expected to use them both for domestic links and over the Berlin-Amsterdam route (Germany-Netherlands). It has also been selected by Danish rail state company DSB as part of its plans to accelerate the transition of the country towards a net-zero economy, and is in operation in Spain under several iterations since the early 2000s.

www.talgo.com

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