European Railroad Discussion > Finland: New CAF M300s for HKL in Helsinki

HKL in Helsinki, Finland is another new customer for Spanish train manufacturer CAF. Company has been able to acquire a lot of new orders recently, one of them being 20 new metro sets for Finnish capital.

Metro of Helsinki was built in from 1970s to early 1980s. As sometimes happens with this kind of ambitious projects, history was quite "colorful", bribes involved and resulting court handling proceeded for a decade. Anyways, finally in 1982 part of the first line was taken in use East from Helsinki center. Since then, many stations and line additions, even one branch line has been added. Another line extension West of Helsinki center will be finished sometime in 2016. At the the moment track installation is in progress. After this section I presume line will continue to grow at both ends before north-south metro will be created. The CAF M300 sets are especially bought for the Western extension. Units are built to enable walk through for 4 modules, where almost similar looking M200 have 2 and refurbished M100 have just one. Where the older stations will accommodate 6-8 module trains on Western section (for reasons of cost cutting in station building) stations are just 4 modules long. So none of the current trains will be able to run to Western section of the metro line. The idea now is that metro will be run at 3 minute intervals on peak hours to have enough capacity available...until 2025 when all capacity will be in use. I wonder what happens after this... 

Last week Stas visited the press show for the M300 at HKL works in Herttoniemi in Helsinki. The following pictures were taken by him and by HKL media people.   
1) Face view by Stas.

2 -3) HKL pics of the unit 301. This is where maintenance for trains is done. At the back wall of the works can be seen an orange prototype train face from 1970s. Looks like while everything else ins changed, the color sticks for good.
   

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4) One more of the huge loading gauge trains for metro, with Ville Lehmuskoski (new gen)(CEO of HKL) and Tapio Hölttä (old gen)(Metro section director). I think the expressions speak much, look carefully.

Picture by Stas.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/15 08:16 by McKey.

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Finally, a picture of the whole module and part of the next one seen, thanks to CAF in Spain! A really neat looking vehicle, don't you think?

Look carefully: this assembly line track looks like it is of variable gauge, and the side to the camera can be moved. It is highly unusual not to see a trolley under any Finnish equipment manufactured in Central / Southern Europe. Obviously gauge at the plant can be adapted to Spanish 1668 mm, Finnish 1524 mm or European standard 1435 mm...how convenient!  

About CAF: Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, S.A. is the largest of Spanish railroad rolling stock manufacturers. Product portfolio includes _all_ the rail vehicles for passenger transportation from long distance high speed to urban trams. CAF also manufactures rolling stock for freight and rail / line maintenance. A few years ago World got to know CAF from the delivery of first high speed trains for Turkey in Europe / Asia. Now Turkey already has over thousand kilometer high speed line length and other manufacturers like Siemens with their Velaro are sharing the train market. It looks obvious that CAF today has the same ability as Stadler Rail: ability to deliver ans serve the customer, what ever may happen! 

   

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Some detail views from Stas:
6) "Standard European bogie" under the unit.

7) Inside view. This is the 1970s color Helsinki trains trains were originally intended to be. M100 newer was, it is too warm toned and colorful inside for at least my tastes.

8) Cockpit. This section can be later removed for full autopilot steering. Benches will be placed in vacated area. 

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John, you can add 1600 mm (5ft. 3in. -- Irish gauge) to CAF's variable-gauge track, as CAF has built a number of DMU's for Iarnrod Eireann (Irish Railways).

Roger Lewis (airbrakegeezer)

interesting thread, Juha. Thanks.

Thank you Roger. this is interesting information!

Would this Irish class 29000 be one of CAF builts?  

airbrakegeezer Wrote:
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> John, you can add 1600 mm (5ft. 3in. -- Irish
> gauge) to CAF's variable-gauge track, as CAF has
> built a number of DMU's for Iarnrod Eireann (Irish
> Railways).
>
> Roger Lewis (airbrakegeezer)

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You are welcome Chris...wait a bit, I'll write on other countries and then there will be a a lot more news this summer / fall! Looks like Finnish railroading finally is evolving rapidly.

Chris-from-Germany Wrote:
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> interesting thread, Juha. Thanks.

McKey Wrote:
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 > Would this Irish class 29000 be one of CAF
> builts?  

Yes they are.