Alstom wins ERTMS maintenance contract for
Betuweroute

The contract will last until 1 January 2010 and has a value
of approximately 2,2 million. Alstom was chosen by
ProRail, the rail infrastructure body. The Alstom site in
Utrecht will be leading, if necessary there will be assistance
from Charleroi.


It is the first time that Alstom is awarded a
maintenance order for ERTMS. Alstom built the ERTMS
system on the Betuweroute in a consortium together with
Movares.

The Betuweroute is a new double track 160 km long
electrified dedicated rail freight line between the port of
Rotterdam and Zevenaar, near the Dutch-German
border.

It is the first example of railway track in Europe solely
dedicated to freight transport. It allows a maximum speed of
120 km/h and it is designed to satisfy all possible future
innovations (by using, for example, the latest generation of
the harmonised Alstom ERTMS, and by designing the
infrastructure for double stack containers). It has served as a
test bed for new technical, financial and operational
solutions, which can now be used all over Europe.



As a next step, the concept will be extended to the Zevenaar -
Genoa corridor, supporting both infrastructure improvements and
the implementation of ERTMS.



In the near future an average of 160 trains per day is expected
to cross the Dutch-German border, carrying around 37 million
tons of freight a year.