There is an article in the Washington Post today that says GE is signing a deal today in a signing ceremony with Kazakhstan to buy 380 Tier II locomotives over the next 10 years. It calls them “dual cab” locomotives with the first delivery of 10 to be in 2008 from their Erie plant, with the rest to undergo final assembly in Kazakhstan.
That will irritate the Russians, yet another “home” market lost to those damned foreigners!
greetings,
Marc Immeker
From the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:
"Kazakhstan’s national railway has agreed to spend more than a half-billion dollars to outfit its trains with hundreds of new “environmentally clean” diesel locomotives built by General Electric Co.
“GE said today the national railway company, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, will buy 310 new dual-cab locomotives between 2008 and 2012, in a contract worth more than $650 million.”
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06271/725815-100.stm
Dave
I went to link to the article, but it isn’t there anymore. I was hoping it would come back.
These are supposed to be “dual cab” GEVOs.
From an earlier press release from GE:
“The Evolution Series locomotives to be assembled in Kazakhstan will be specially designed for operation in Kazakhstan and the entire CIS region. The dualcab locomotives will have an interior walkway bridging both ends of the locomotive. The units will be powered by GE’s 12cylinder GEVO engine, manufactured in Grove City, Pennsylvania. Traction motors on each of the six axles will be ACpowered, a first for the CIS region. The technology will be superior to any locomotive currently operating in the CIS region.”
The full press release about GE building a plant there is here: http://www.ge.com/ru/en/ourCompany/releases/20060516.html
I give it a month or two in service before UP takeover talks get started…[;)]
In the press release Ge states that they have a long relationship (10 years) with KTZ. Personally I don’t think 10 years is long but then again, as am archivist, I am in the process of finishing up making an inventory of an archive that started before 1600!
Or is 10 years the halflife of a GE locomotive? [;)]
greetings,
Marc Immeker
All this activity is timed to coincide with the visit of the Kazakh president. The Kazakhs have evidently have been buying GE kits to upgrade their locomotives for a few years. They are also building a plant to build GE locomotives there. May see them all over the former Soviet states in a few years. The plant is supposed to be able to churn out 100 locomotives per year when complete. Evidently they will just do final assembly there. The first part of the order is to be US built, but the remainder is assembled over there.