Following a successful pilot series, HUBER+SUHNER has now officially been awarded the contract to provide the cabling for a total of 59 TWINDEXX Swiss Express double-deck trains with 436 carriages. Bombardier and HUBER+SUHNER signed the five-year contract for series production, worth around 26 million Euros in order volume. First deliveries are set to take place in the second half of 2015. There is also an option to provide cabling for additional trains.
Over the coming years, Bombardier will be supplying 59 state-of-the-art double-deck trains to the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB). HUBER+SUHNER has now been tasked with delivering the roof top antennas, as well as with producing and partly installing the coach harnesses and underfloor cabling for the new InterCity and InterRegio trains. Around 8,000 kilometres of cables will be installed for these complex systems.
The Bombardier contract is the largest vehicle project in SBB's history. It is also one of the biggest railway projects to date for HUBER+SUHNER, and additional production capacity is being created in Poland to ensure a fast, flexible approach to deliveries.
Strengthening of market position
The TWINDEXX Swiss Express is not HUBER+SUHNER's first project for Bombardier. The partnership between the two companies has already been in place for several years. “HUBER+SUHNER has already proved to be reliable partner for previous orders, such as the Delhi Metro,” said Dirk Puschmann, Director Procurement at Bombardier, explaining the decision in favour of the cooperation. “Thanks to its many years of experience in the railway market, HUBER+SUHNER is a supplier that is familiar with and can master the critical milestones in our projects.”
This order sees HUBER+SUHNER strengthen its position in the market. “In this project we are, once again, not merely a cable supplier but a system supplier,” explained Patrick Riederer, Chief Operating Officer of the Low Frequency Division at HUBER+SUHNER. “Thanks to our global production and distribution network, and our ability to manage international projects centrally, we are a strong partner for such large-scale orders,” said Mr. Riederer.
