The Australian railway manufacturer Downer EDI Rail has chosen HUBER+SUHNER as its cable supplier for the new suburban passenger trains in Sydney. Over the next three to four years, HUBER+SUHNER will supply products from all three of its technologies – radio frequency, fiber optics, and low frequency – worth around CHF 40 million.
Downer EDI Rail will build 78 new passenger trains for the state rail network operator RailCorp by 2013, consisting of 624 double-deck carriages. HUBER+SUHNER was chosen as a supplier for this project by Downer EDI Rail and will manufacture over 12,000 kilometres of specific RADOX railway cables. These are light, slim-line, halogen-free, and fire-resistant, and meet the strict conditions imposed by RailCorp.
In addition to RADOX railway cables, HUBER+SUHNER will also supply radio frequency antennas and cables for communication systems, as well as fiber optic cable systems, to Downer EDI Rail. The latter are designed to convey data for passenger information and monitoring systems installed in the carriages of the new PPP passenger trains. For HUBER+SUHNER’s fiber optic division, this order marks a real breakthrough in the railway market segment.
Represented with three technologies
In this railway project, HUBER+SUHNER is therefore represented with all three of its technologies. The combination of radio frequency, fiber optics and low frequency made it possible to customise the development of this overall solution and makes HUBER+SUHNER the sole supplier of the entire cabling for the PPP passenger trains.
The first of these new, state-of-the art trains will be rolled out for passenger service on Sydney’s rail network from January 2011, and the trains will gradually replace around one third of today’s trains by 2013. The PPP project represents the largest single procurement of passenger trains in Australian history.
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