Italian railway company Trenitalia is buying 17 of the 19 Fyra trains developped for NS’s failed Amsterdam-Brussels high speed railway project, train manufacturer AnsaldoBreda confirmed. According to Italian media, Trenitalia is paying about a third of the price that NS originally paid for the trains.
NS originally paid 200 million euros for the trains, but the final cost of the failed project amounted to 772 million euros, according to a parliamentary inquiry in 2015. AnsaldoBreda paid NS 125 million euros in a settlement amount. The settlement involved AnsaldoBreda buying the trains back from NS, with the agreement that NS will receive part of the turnover should the trains ever be sold to someone else. According to estimates, the compensation NS will receive when Trenitalia buys the trains amounts to around 20 million euros.
The first Fyra train traveled on the Amsterdam-Brussels new line in December 2012. A month later, NS pulled the train off the rails again after part of the train fell off in Belgium. In June 2013, NS finally scrapped the use of Fyra trains and deployed regular trains on the route.
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