Tender to buy 117 trains for rail operator CP to be launched in December
The tender was approved by the cabinet and the government expects the first train to arrive in 2026 and that all the trains will be in circulation in 2029.
Portugal’s minister of infrastructure on Friday said that the €819 million tender to acquire 117 new electric railcars by CP (the country’s rail operator) will be launched in December.
“Within a few weeks we will launch what is the biggest tender ever in CP’s history,” minister Pedro Nuno Santos told journalists on the sidelines of the ceremony to sign a contract between Medway, Stadler and Tratavagonka for the acquisition of 16 locomotives and 113 wagons.
The tender was approved by the cabinet and the government expects the first train to arrive in 2026 and that all the trains will be in circulation in 2029.
The minister said that the tender is being prepared to ensure that the 117 trains are to be made by a company that is available to build part or all of the train in Portugal.
“There is nothing that a train has that cannot already be made in Portugal,” he said.
Assuring that European legislation will be scrupulously complied with, Pedro Nuno Santos stressed, however, that the tender will ensure that investment is made in Portugal.
Taking advantage of the presence of representatives of Stadler, whose factory in the Iberian Peninsula is located in neighbouring Spain, Pedro Nuno Santos challenged the Swiss rolling stock manufacturer by saying that CP has already contracted 22 trains, Medway 16 and in a few weeks, before the end of the year, they will launch a tender for 117 and, therefore, it is an opportunity of honour for Stadler, without abandoning Valencia, to start investing in Portugal.
