Think Railways

Polish rolling stock manufacturer Newag has started manu­fac­tu­ring Volcano DMUs for Sicilian rail passenger operator Ferrovia Circumetnea (FCE).

Accor­ding to the agre­ement, Volcano are nar­row gauge tra­ins with Die­sel engi­nes and elec­tric trans­mis­sions. Due to the inte­rior lay­out, it will be possi­ble to use the tra­ins both on urban and sub­ur­ban routes. The arran­ge­ment of seats, easily con­fi­gu­red, will ena­ble opti­mal pas­sen­ger capa­city. The mini­mum num­ber of seats will be 100 and it can be decre­ased depen­ding on the carrier’s needs.

The tra­ins will be fully air-conditioned and adap­ted to trans­por­ting per­sons with restric­ted mobi­lity. Each train will be fit­ted with a retention-tank toilet adap­ted for use by disa­bled per­sons. A moni­to­ring sys­tem will be instal­led to ensure pas­sen­gers’ safety. The DMU will feature a passenger-counting sys­tem, a GPS and smoke detec­tors with a fire alarm sys­tem. The driver’s cab will be fit­ted with the public anno­un­ce­ment sys­tem to ena­ble com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the pas­sen­gers. The Die­sel Mul­ti­ple Units will tra­vel with a maxi­mum speed of 100 km/h and can be ope­ra­ted in mul­ti­ple traction.

The first train will be star­ted in Nowy Sącz in mid June and sub­se­qu­en­tly, it will be taken to Cata­nia to be han­ded over to the FCE.  Next “Vol­cano” rail-buses will be deli­ve­red every two weeks star­ting from September.

This is the first agre­ement signed by Newag for rol­ling stock deli­very out­side Poland.