During the first RB Rail supplier consultations, 20 companies participated at the meetings focused on four initial component categories which involved rails, turnouts, sleepers with fastenings, and ballast, as well as related components. The suppliers feature a broad geographical representation, ranging from local Baltic companies or international manufacturers located in the Baltics to various companies from Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Poland as well as more distant locations.
The Rail Baltica team will use the consultations’ feedback from the industry to refine the upcoming technical specifications for individual components and component groups, as well as to elaborate a detailed procurement strategy.
RB Rail is currently expecting the first tenders to be announced in the fourth quarter of this year, aiming to sign the first framework agreements by mid-2021.
“Rail Baltica will require quantities of various railway infrastructure components and materials on an unprecedented scale for modern Baltics. This presents an opportunity to develop a system of consolidated procurement, enabling Rail Baltica not only achieve favourable pricing and delivery conditions, but also ensure consistent quality, full interoperability and major life-cycle benefits towards the future performance and maintenance of Rail Baltica,” said Kaspars Briškens, RB Rail head of Strategy and Development.
The second round of supplier consultations will be upcoming and shall focus on such areas as, concrete, including precast, elements, noise walls, fencing materials, cabling/piping elements and other.
RB Rail has concluded series of online meetings with the potential suppliers of rail infrastructure components. The direct engagement with the rail supply industry follows after the Rail Baltica component sourcing strategy, which was completed in the end of 2019 in collaboration with TUV Sud and University of Graz.
The objectives of the meetings, among other, was to learn in detail the product availability on the market and relevant technical characteristics, and to assess available capacities and lead times as well as to collect supplier expectations towards planned component procurement.
Rail Baltica project is continuing to be implemented as in April a tender for electrification engineering services was launched and two design contracts were signed for Latvia’s section.
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