The year ending...
The United Kingdom, Australia, Algeria, Luxembourg, Colombia, Chile ... In 2016 CAF Power & Automation started the year with the signing of contracts for projects across the world. The start of the year was marked by our strong entry into the UK market, allowing us to look north enthusiastically, with a desire to develop innovative traction and control equipment after being awarded projects by the English operator ARRIVA.
Furthermore, our efforts led to the development of on-board energy storage systems, for the catenary-free operation of the Midland Metro trams in Birmingham. In fact, the first of the trams is now on its way to the CAF plant in Zaragoza to start the retrofit.
In addition to these projects, further contracts included the Canberra Tram, the start of production for the first units for the Luxembourg Tram and track tests for the 402A locomotive on the Velim circuit...
At CAF Power, we closed 2016 with a positive balance, following our participation in international trade fairs such as Africa Rail, Iran Rail Expo and Innotrans. We have also enhanced and extended our online presence with the launch of a new updated website with improved contents, and we now have the possibility of closer interaction with our customers through our new company page at Linkedin.
To top it off, CAF was also awarded new units for the Medellin Metro and Santiago de Chile Metro in 2016. For this latter city, CAF Power is to supply the COSMOS control and 1500V POWER DC traction equipment for the additional 4 units for its lines 3 & 6 . For its part, the Colombian city is also to include the COSMOS and 1500V POWER DC in a further 2 metro units, joining the 20 units forming part of the current project.
The coming year...
2017 commenced with extremely good news from Utrecht, where we signed a contract for a further supply of the COSMOS and POWER DC 750V systems for 22 new trams, to be added to the 27 that are currently being equiped.
In the course of the year, we will be attending the trade fairs of Eurasia Rail in Istanbul, Middle East Rail in Dubai, Iran Rail Expo in Tehran and Railway Interchange in Indianapolis. The latter, which will be held in September, is the largest combined railway exhibition and technical conference on rail transport in North America.
What's more, in 2017 we'll be celebrating our anniversary! CAF Power & Automation has now been in the traction business for the last 5 years, following the merger of the CAF Group companies TRAINTIC, TRAINELEC and DT4Q. Short life but wide experience in the railway market for more than 15 years.
Let's move forward together!
‘ If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward’. Martin Luther King.