Alstom presents the AGV at UIC Highspeed in
Amsterdam
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The AGV™, Alstom’s newest very high speed train,
held pride of place: a 1/10 scale model of the train, a 3D
animation showing how it works and the film about the project
were presented. Visitors could also watch the film of April
2007’s rail speed record.
Some 20 journalists were able to interview François
Lacôte, SVP Technical, Roland Kientz, SVP Northern Europe,
Laurent Baron, Director of VHST Single Deck and Yannick Legay,
Product Policy Manager - High Speed Group.
Among the topics raised by the journalists, were the AGV™
and the very high speed market within Northern Europe. Philippe
Mellier, president of Alstom transport, and Roland Kientz also
scheduled a meeting with German journalists on 19 March.
More than 80 customers came to the stand during the 3
days
More than 80 customers came to the stand during the 3 days,
including Chinese delegations and a number of Europeans
(Swedish, Norwegian, German, Portuguese, Finnish, Dutch and
Spanish), Russians and Brazilians. Some took part in a
round-table discussion entitled “Mastering Very High
Speed”, during which François Lacôte spoke.
On 18 March, customers were invited to workshops with Alstom
Transport experts about the AGV™.
With close on 16.4 million inhabitants and an area of 41,000
km2, the Netherlands has the densest rail network in the world.
Passenger and freight transport are on the rise (by 5% and 7%
average per year respectively). Furthermore, recent years have
seen the launch of major rail projects such as the Betuweroute,
a freight corridor linking the port of Rotterdam with Germany,
and the high-speed HSL-South line, connecting Amsterdam and
Brussels. There is thus great potential for rail development in
the Netherlands.
Alstom has been operating in the Netherlands for over 20 years
from three sites at Ridderkerk, Utrecht and Rijswijk (The
Hague) and is a long-term supplier to the country's rail
transport sector for both main line and urban transport. Alstom
also built the Thalys, the very-high-speed train that operates
on the Paris-Amsterdam route. When it comes to signalling
systems and equipment, Alstom is the largest supplier in the
Netherlands. Besides the Betuweroute, which uses six
locomotives fitted by Alstom with ERTMS onboard systems, the
Belgian section and the Belgian-Dutch boarder passage of the
HSL-South high-speed line is equipped with Alstom's ERTMS Level
2 technology.
As far as urban transport is concerned, Alstom recently won two
successive tenders for the Rotterdam tramway: the city's fleet
of 113 Citadis trams is now the largest in the world. Alstom
also manufactured the Regio Citadis tram-trains running on the
RandstadRail in The Hague in a pilot project of European import
aimed at providing new mobility solutions between the city
centre and the suburbs