At the turn of January and February, České dráhy took over another four Siemens Vectron locomotives from the RSL leasing company. These are the first machines from this year’s delivery. In 2024, České dráhy will take over 22 new locomotives. At the end of the year, the national carrier will have 61 Siemens locomotives at its disposal. From December 2025, the delivery of 50 modern interoperable Siemens Vectron locomotives for the speed of 230 km/h is planned, and these locomotives will be directly owned by České dráhy.
“This year we will continue to renew our locomotives by acquiring the latest Siemens Vectron interoperable machines through a leasing transaction. By the end of the year, we will replace older locomotives without the ETCS system on the railway lines where operation under the supervision of the new train control system will be mandatory from 1 January 2025. At the same time, we will provide our locomotive drivers with better working conditions on the new locomotives meeting the demanding requirements of the European TSI standards, and passengers will certainly appreciate the performance of the new locomotives, which will make it easier for them to reach their maximum speed and, if necessary, they can also better reduce any delays occurring on the train route,” says Michal Krapinec, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director General of České dráhy.
“We currently have the Vectron locomotives which are deployed on 34 rotating days. They travel more than 32,000 kilometres per day. They run trains from Flensburg on the German-Danish border to Budapest, they go to Warsaw and to Žilina in Slovakia. As more locomotives will be arriving throughout the year, we will first use them throughout the entire ČD Group for various outputs, including freight transport, and then we will gradually start replacing the 46-year-old 151 class locomotives on the train services from Prague to Bohumín and Žilina, and from the December timetable change at the latest, we will also replace the 380 class locomotives on the train services to Budapest,” adds Jiří Ješeta, Member of the ČD Board of Directors and Deputy Director General for Passenger Transport, clarifying the deployment of the Siemens locomotives this year.
The locomotives of the 151 class are planned to be put completely out of operation. At present, České dráhy has a total of 12 of them and deploys these locomotives from the Bohumín depot on 9 rotating days. The 380 class will move to other railway lines without exclusive operation with the ETCS system with the changeover to the 2025 timetable. These will be mainly trains on the Prague – České Budějovice – Linz lines. Railway fans will thus have one last sure season to catch the 151 class locomotives at the head of express trains on the 3rd railway corridor, as well as the 380 class locomotives on the 1st railway corridor. Within the framework of the modernisation of the rolling stock of České dráhy, another whole class of older vehicles will be put out of operation.
The Siemens Vectron locomotives are deployed on České dráhy’s trains known as Berliner from Prague to Flensburg, Kiel, Hamburg and Berlin, Canopus to Leipzig, Metropolitan to Budapest, on the trains Západní expres, Krušnohor and Slovácký expres from Prague via Plzeň to Cheb, from Cheb to Ústí nad Labem, from Ústí nad Labem to Prague, from Prague to Staré Město u Uh. Hradiště and on the train known as Báthory (Budapest – Břeclav – Bohumín – Warsaw). The locomotives are already running at the head of some trains on the Prague – Ostrava – Žilina and Bohumín – Warsaw routes. The maximum speed of the current Vectrons is 200 km/h and their power output is 6.4 MW. They can run on railway lines in Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria. They are equipped with the ETCS train control system and the GSM-R radio communication features.
Author: Petr Pošta
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