Turkey postpones the 96 high-speed trains tender to April

Turkish State Railways (TCDD) announced that the tender for the new 96 high-speed trains is postponed until April 5th. The project is estimated at a value of EUR 3 billion and it is expected with great interest by the international rolling stock manufacturers.

Innitialy, the tender should have been organised this January, as Turkey announced last year. But, TCDD decided to postpone the pre-qualification procedure at the request of a series of companies willing to attend the tender. In order to prepare the neccesary tender documents, the companies need more time.

Under the terms of the tender, a first batch of 20 high-speed trains will be produced at the manufacturer’s headquarters, with only 10% production being localized in Turkey. The next batch of 60 high-speed trains will be manufactured in Turkey with a local production rate of 53%.

The remaining 16 vehicles, out of the total of 96, will be manufactured in Turkey by Tülomsaş (the national locomotives and passenger coaches’ manufacturer) but under the supervision of the winner of the tender to be organised in April 2018. The rate of localization in Turkey for the production of the 16 high-speed trains will be 74%.

The terms of the tender include the construction of a new production plant on Turkish territory, the transfer of know-how and the free of charge transfer to Tülomsaş, at the end of the manufacturing process, of all the equipment used by the winning manufacturer.

Most likely, at Tülomsaş’s request, TCDD will require that the new factory will be built in Eskișehir.

According to the requirements, all 96 high-speed trains will have to run at 250 km/h, they will be equipped with ETCS Level 1 and Level 2 signaling system and they will also have to be equipped with a regenerative braking system. The new high-speed trains should have a capacity for the transport of 470 passengers, a minimum of 90 seats in business class cars (each train will have two business class cars). The trains should have a restaurant car with 16 seats, of which eight seats at the bar the restaurant car should include.

We recall that this January, TCDD selected Siemens as winner of the contract for the construction of 10 new high-speed trains. The bid submitted by German rolling stock manufacturer was of EUR 349 million. This project was firstly announced in 2014 and is distinct unto the future tender in April.