Over the last seven years, Voith Turbo has delivered 600 final drives to India for the metro trains in Delhi. The operator Delhi Metro Railway Co. is firmly convinced of the reliability of the drives and has just ordered another 312 drive units.
These new type SE-344 final drives will be used to equip a further 156 metro vehicles. The development of Metro Delhi can be regarded as an example of the overall expansion of the Indian rail market, which is currently experiencing enormous growth. Among industry insiders, Delhi is seen as the starting signal for further metro projects in India. Metro extensions are, for example, planned for Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai. Yet the rail market not only grows in terms of urban traffic. Suburban and long-distance passenger and goods transport operators, too, are putting new rail vehicles in service throughout India.
With this follow-on order, Voith Turbo was able to score not only as far as reliability is concerned. As the installation space in the new metro railcars is significantly more restricted than with the previous vehicles, the SE-344 has to be installed in a much more confined space. The reason for this is the route conversion from wide to normal gauge.
The vehicles will be built by Rotem Hyundai Company, Korea, in cooperation with the Indian company BEML. The cooperation partner is not only in charge of assembling the vehicles, but also responsible for fitting most of the interior of the individual carriages.