Harsco Rail Europe hands over maintenance vehicles for the Gotthard Base Tunnel to Swiss national rail service Schweizerische Bundesbahn SBB

Düsseldorf, Germany - Harsco Rail Europe will deliver a total of 31 highly specialized and innovative rail vehicles for the maintenance of the Gotthard Base Tunnel to the Swiss national rail service Schweizerische Bundesbahn SBB. The American market leader successfully won the contract for this order in 2013. Delivering best in class track maintenance solutions, the handover of these vehicles became a key milestone for Harsco Rail Europe and its highly trained engineers.

On 15 December 2017, Harsco Rail had a ceremony to commemorate handing over the first six of thirteen base vehicles constructed especially for the challenging maintenance work in the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the world's longest railway tunnel. The vehicles, which weigh 80 tonnes each, use "green technology" and can be powered by electricity only or a combination of diesel and electric power. Some unique features include an air-conditioned personnel module that includes a kitchenette and a combustion toilet. These base vehicles can be operated not only from the driver's cab but also via remote control. In addition, they can even be controlled from other wagons.

Besides the base vehicles, the company is also supplying some additional module flat wagons which can all be coupled with the aid of an automatic wagon coupling system to form maintenance trains that are three to four hundred metres long. Beneath the wagons are not only the largest lifting platforms in Switzerland but also the unique mobile sealing gate (MET). This gate can seal the tunnel for maintenance work to prevent wind turbulence.

For Andreas Göbbels, who heads the Harsco Rail Europe maintenance vehicles for the Gotthard Base Tunnel project, the vehicles are not only "an impressive entry into the European market", but also the "industry-wide proof that it is possible to construct such complex vehicles." He explains, Harsco Rail developed solutions with ground-breaking multifunctional features in collaboration with our customer, SBB. According to Göbbels, the construction was quite complex and Harsco Rail is particularly proud of the customized results from this large-scale order.

At the handover ceremony, the six base vehicles that were delivered on 15 December were named after the communities of Erstfeld, Wassen, Airolo, Ambri-Piotta, Giornico and Biasca, which are all located along the old north-south route across the Gotthard.