Henri Poupart-Lafarge, president of Alstom Transport, has officially opened the company’s new 15 million euro Citadis light rail vehicle (LRV) production line at Taubaté in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo.
The first vehicles to be manufactured at the plant will be 32 LRVs ordered in September 2013 by the VLT Carioca consortium for a public-private partnership project to build a 28km light rail network as part of the “revitalisation of the Maravilha port area of Rio de Janeiro”.
Delivery of the LRVs is expected to start later this year and be completed by mid-2016 in time for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. The production line occupies 16,000m sq m and will be able to produce up to eight LRVs per month.
The plant will serve the Latin American market, where a number of light rail projects are emerging.