More Good News For Hillside Engineering In Dunedin

More Good News For Hillside Engineering In Dunedin

22 May 2008

Hillside Engineering in Dunedin has won a contract to supply 30 SA and six SD railcars to the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) for use on the Auckland rail network.

The $63 million contract, which will commence delivery in June next year and be completed by December 2010, will entail the complete remanufacture of imported British Rail cars, explains Toll Rail Auckland Metro Services Manager Paul Ashton.

Mr Ashton says Hillside earned the latest contract on the back of its proven track record with this model of passenger carriage train. This is a great vote of confidence for everyone involved at Hillside.

"In May 2004 the first SA-SD passenger carriage train was delivered and commissioned as part of interim rolling stock for Auckland. Since that time, an additional 13 sets of carriages have been delivered and we will be completing an order for three more by October this year.

ARTA’s General Manager, Customer Services, Mark Lambert says, “ Patronage on rail in Auckland continues its strong growth. In the past year over 6 million passenger journeys were carried on the network, double the number of people carried three years ago. As we increase services on the network even further we can only see this trend continuing, hence the current requirement for more trains”.

Mr Ashton says, “so when we have completed this new order, Hillside will have delivered 104 SA-SD cars for ARTA.

"This is certainly good news for Dunedin as the majority of production is local . Since Toll took over Hillside Engineering staff numbers have doubled and it certainly bodes well for the future”, says Mr Ashton.

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