Russian Railways (RZD), Karelian Trains and the Finnish rail traffic maintenance company VR FleetCare have signed a 20-year agreement for the maintenance and lifecycle services for the Allegro trains operating between Helsinki and St. Petersburg.
The contract will enter into force from 2022 until 2042 and covers maintenance services for a train fleet consisting of a total of four 7-car electric trains manufactured by Alstom. With this agreement, the Allegro trains will continue to be maintained at the Helsinki depot in Finland.
The agreement signed on 9 December 2021 is divided into two periods of 11 and 9 years “and its value is significant,” VR FleetCare says. According to the agreement, the Finnish company is responsible for the maintenance and lifecycle management of the rolling stock until the end of its service life, including scheduled maintenance and repairs in accordance with the maintenance programme as well as material management.
“By managing the lifecycle until the end of the rolling stock’s planned service life, we can guarantee high quality service to the customer,” Peter Guldbrand, Vice President of VR FleetCare said.
The main objective of the agreement is to carry out comprehensive and high-quality rolling stock maintenance and to ensure excellent travel comfort and reliable transport. Customer reporting will also be developed to meet the customer needs. In the future, the customer will be able to monitor the condition and maintenance of trains in real time through a customer portal built for this purpose.
“We are convinced that the multi-year partnership does not only enable professional maintenance but also makes the trains technically more advanced and more customer-friendly through new alterations. RZD representatives are also pleased with the long-term agreement with a reliable partner,” Viktoria Hurri, Managing Director of Karelian Trains said.
The Allegro trains have been maintained in cooperation between Helsinki and St. Petersburg depots for more than ten years. The general maintenance of Allegro trains is carried out at the Helsinki depot while the St. Petersburg depot is responsible “for the maintenance of access control and line radio systems belonging to the Russian railway system, in addition to operational maintenance,” Toni Harju, the head of Passenger Traffic Trains Maintenance at VR FleetCare explained.
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