One of the vehicles on display this year at InnoTrans is Alstom’s Coradia Max for Landesnahverkehrsgesellschaft Niedersachsen (LNVG).
This train has a central portion that is single-deck and flanking portions that are double-deck.
During the presentation Alstom highlighted several aspects of the train that were pushed for by the customer – LNVG: the quietness of the train, which is why Alstom has now dubbed this the ‘Silent Train’, and its accessibility.
“I would like also to highlight here for reduced mobility people, as you can see, it's completely free from any slope. It's completely flat. This also was pushed, to be honest, by our customer. We are happy because this is now a range solution.
“It's exactly like the acoustic. We have been challenged by our customer to have something silent, which is becoming now our range. It's our solution for the range.”
Asked about what made the train low-noise, Michael Peppel, Project Director at Alstom cited features such as the bogie design and the air-conditioning system.
“It actually starts with the electrical equipment. You can change frequencies, which you wouldn't expect in the first place to reduce noise, but part of the noise is really coming from our electrical equipment. Converters. This is an electrical train.
“One of the secrets is to change the frequencies in a way that it is not in the hearing range, let's say. This is what we've done. You can actually also just play with the fact that you switch on the equipment as much as you need, so to speak. What we then have is a very low-noise comfort.”
Another feature important to LNVG was efficiency and energy efficiency in particular. The reason, we were told, that the single-deck car was located in the middle of the train was that it had all the cabling and with it being centrally located, the amount of cabling was kept to a minimum, which keeps cable maintenance and materials as low as possible.
Speaking of maintenance, Alstom said the maintenance costs of this Coradia Max was 18 percent lower than those of the previous generation. Likewise, energy consumption was reduced by 35 percent and 96 percent of the materials used in the train were recyclable.
The first class car is in the double-deck section at one end of the train. Asked why it was placed there, Alstom said that this too had been a customer requirement. The intention was to keep footfall from second-class passengers to a minimum and therefore keeping the first-class carriage as quiet as possible. A side effect of its location was also that this car was the furthest away from the technical systems in the single-deck car, adding a further layer of quietness – though importantly even that central car is very quiet.
The modularity of the train was another aspect Alstom wanted to emphasise. For example, over a lifetime it is possible to change capacities of the train length by changing from a three to a four or five or six car version without re-certifying. First-class sections can be transformed into second-class sections and vice versa. And the bicycle capacity can be seasonally configured. None of this can be done out on the track but it would be no more than a day’s work in the workshop, we were told.
Accessibility, the efficiency of cost operation, sustainability and the modularity, the quietude – these were the areas where Alstom was pushed and where it can now use those standards for new trains moving forwards. But for now, the Coradia Max will enter into passenger service in Lower Saxony, Germany in 2025.
