Good news for the Alstom plant in Bautzen: regional trains are now being produced here

From Miriam Schönbach

Bautzen. The Bautzen wagon builders are setting the course for the future: with a symbolic push of a button, the French rail manufacturer Alstom has commissioned a new production line for modern regional trains at the site. "This is the basis for us to be able to deliver wonderful regional rail vehicles from Bautzen in the future. We want to establish this location as a permanent fixture on the market so that our competitors have sleepless nights. After 180 years of history, we want to shape the next 180 years here," said Müslüm Yakisan, President of the Germany-Austria-Switzerland region at Alstom, at the inauguration on July 30, 2024.

Trains for Romanian regional transport are now being built on this new production line. In the view of plant manager Beata Krehel, the order is a huge opportunity. "This event marks an important milestone. The framework agreement with the Romanian rail reform authority covers the delivery of up to 40 state-of-the-art Coradia Stream vehicles, 34 of which will be built in Bautzen," says Krehel. The order is worth a total of 400 million euros. The Coradia Stream electric trains are an Alstom classic. Over 4,000 trains of this type have already been delivered to customers.

Bautzen is one of Alstom's oldest sites

In Bautzen, the construction of regional trains is a continuation of the old wagon building tradition, while at the same time looking to the future. Until now, the employees here have taken care of orders that date back to the Bombardier era. The Canadian rail vehicle manufacturer had specialized its Upper Lusatian branches in Bautzen and Görlitz in the production of light rail vehicles and streetcars. In 2021, the French company Alstom took over Bombardier's train division.

The site in Bautzen, which was founded in 1846, is one of the oldest in the Alstom Group. Tradition meets modernity - this is how Beata Krehel sums up the investment of 2.3 million euros in the new production line. "For the Bautzen site, its construction represents the further development of manufacturing expertise. The investment underlines Alstom's commitment to a long-term perspective for the site and signals a new focus on full-track production," says the site manager. This should become the core of the product portfolio in the future.

The new production line was set up in just six months. 170 qualified employees will now put 266,000 hours into the Coradia Stream project. Alstom President Müslüm Yakisan thanks them for their commitment. "This is a strong signal for Lusatia, for Saxony and for our team in Bautzen. This location has become an integral part of the global production capacities within the Alstom family," he said. The city is not only synonymous with the best mustard, but the rail vehicle location also stands for high quality, precision, flexibility and expertise.

The introduction of the new product is a symbol of great trust for the Group, which is linked to another major order placed here for local public transport. This billion-euro project with the special-purpose association go.Rheinland and the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (VRR) includes the delivery of 90 commuter trains for the S-Bahn in the Rhineland and their maintenance over a period of three decades.

"After almost seven years of work, we won the contract last week. This is the largest order that Alstom Deutschland has ever acquired," says Müslüm Yakisan. Final construction, testing and commissioning are planned for Bautzen from 2027. The first vehicles are to be put into operation in 2029, with further trains to be delivered by 2033. This is a generational mission.

Saxony's Minister President Michael Kretschmer (CDU) would like to see more good economic news like this from Upper Lusatia. "This success in Bautzen has been hard-earned. There was also great support from the federal government. For us, it is crucial that we remain an industrial state with jobs covered by collective agreements," says Kretschmer. It is also important to continue the positive development in rail vehicle construction. His goal is a special fund for Deutsche Bahn for infrastructure and the construction of vehicles.

Is Alstom selling the Görlitz site?

While the Bautzen plant is busy with both the new orders and the construction of streetcars for Dresden, Essen, BerlinDüsseldorf, Duisburg, Magdeburg and Gothenburg as well as the interior outfitting of double-decker trains for the Israeli State Railways and the S-Bahn Hamburgis well utilized, the Alstom colleagues on the Neisse are fearing for their jobs. At the moment, the Görlitz plant is still producing the body shells for the double-decker carriages for Israel and for the streetcars of the Vienna local railroads as well as for Gothenburg, Magdeburg, Dresden and Leipzig. But what comes next?

There have been rumblings inside and outside the plant for weeks. One of the latest pieces of information was, The location should be connected to a Mechanical engineering company sold become. This was neither confirmed nor denied by Müslüm Yakisan at the meeting in Bautzen. "We are working intensively with the employee representatives, the state and federal governments and many industrial partners to make industrial jobs in and for Görlitz fit for the future and to maintain them in the long term. We have a Future collective agreementwhich is valid until 2026. We will stick to it," says Yakisan. There is currently no conceptual design. However, the expertise of the Görlitz plant is in mechanical engineering.