Business news

MINSK, 26 August (BelTA-TASS) – The Swiss company Stadler will ship 23 tram cars of the Metelitsa (blizzard) variety to Saint Petersburg, BelTA has learned.

The tram cars will be made by the Stadler Minsk factory. The first six cars will be handed over to the customer by late July 2017. It is the first large order for the innovative tram car Metelitsa that Stadler has developed specifically for the wide rail gauge. The sum of the contract has not been disclosed.

The 23 Metelitsa tram cars will be bought for the sake of building a tram network in Saint Petersburg’s Krasnogvardeisky District. The trams will go into service in August 2017. As part of the contract the trams will get aftersales service for three years. Another contract can be signed to give the trams five years of aftersales service. The manufacturer is expected to provide active support to the customer in planning and setting up the depot for servicing the tram cars.

“The demand for trams is rather high. Several tenders to sell modern low-floor trams are in the pipeline as part of preparations for the forthcoming football championship that will take place in Russia in 2018,” said Stadler Rail Group CEO Peter Spuhler.

Stadler Rail Group is a systemic vendor of solutions for manufacturing railway and urban transport. It has enterprises in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Italy, Belarus, Algeria, and the USA.