The lease begins in 2024 and lasts eight years. The railway company is certain that the new locomotives guarantee high vehicle availability and thus high transport quality in inland freight transport. At the same time, SBB Cargo wants to remain strategically flexible with the rental.
In addition, Siemens Mobility reports that several partners are involved in the transaction. The Swiss bank Reichmuth & Co Investment Management AG has ordered 35 Vectron AC locomotives from Siemens Mobility via its investment vehicle LokRoll 3 AG. LokRoll 3 will lease the locomotives to SBB Cargo for eight years via the asset manager Northrail GmbH, which it has commissioned to do so. The entire transaction was arranged and structured by Paribus Rail Investment Management GmbH. The lease also includes local maintenance of the vehicles by Siemens Mobility for eight years. The vehicles will be manufactured in the Siemens Mobility plant in Munich-Allach and delivered in 2024.
Strategic flexibility
“With the Vectron mainline locomotives, we can increase the reliability of our most important work equipment and thus further increase the quality for our customers,” says Désirée Baer, CEO of SBB Cargo. “In addition, thanks to the rent, we remain strategically flexible. In addition, there are synergies in use and experience in our maintenance, because this locomotive is already in use at SBB Cargo International.”
Siemens Mobility is also pleased: “The fact that we can again deliver locomotives for Switzerland confirms the high reliability and performance of our Vectron platform,” says Albrecht Neumann, CEO Rolling Stock of Siemens Mobility. The AC locomotives will mainly operate in Switzerland, but they can also be used across borders in Germany and Austria.
According to the company, SBB Cargo will further develop its long-term fleet strategy according to the political decision on the future orientation of inland freight transport in Switzerland. With the new locomotives, SBB Cargo is investing in high vehicle availability and thus in the transport quality of inland freight transport. In this way, the high customer requirements for quality can be met.
The Vectron locomotive from Siemens Mobility is a modern and well-tested locomotive. It has been ordered more than 1400 times to date. The locomotives have covered more than 585 million fleet kilometers – in over a dozen European countries. There is therefore a high degree of standardization. The Vectron locomotives are designed for a maximum operating speed of 160 km/h. The new vehicles for SBB Cargo are equipped with the European ETCS BL3 train control system and the necessary national train control systems.
SBB Cargo AG: pulse of the Swiss economy
SBB Cargo handles one seventh of Swiss freight traffic, transporting 185,000 tonnes per day for its customers in wagonload, block train and combined transport within Switzerland, thereby relieving the road by 15,000 truck journeys per day and the environment by 460,000 tonnes per year CO2. hfs/sb/si
