OREANDA-NEWS. May 28, 2010. Russian Railways has signed a deal with the joint venture set up by Sinara Group and Siemens on the purchase of 221 electric freight locomotives, reported the press-centre of Russian Railways.

The document was signed at the V International Rail Business Forum "1520 Strategic Partnership" in Sochi.

The electric locomotives with 2ES10 asynchronous traction drive will be supplied by the Urals Locomotives company established by Siemens and Sinara Group. Under with the agreement, the joint venture, working at the Urals Railway Machinery Plant (Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Sverdlovsk Region), will produce 221 dual-section freight locomotives of the 2ES10 type from 2011 to 2016
The first prototype is scheduled to be ready by December 2010. In 2011, after the full testing and certification process, 11 locomotives will be delivered to Russian Railways.

The joint venture, whose capital is 51% owned by Sinara and 49% owned by Siemens, will build 2ES10 electric freight locomotives, which are currently not produced in Russia. The company will also continue serial production of 2ES6 electric locomotives. On the basis of the EES6 locomotives, which are built using engineering techniques 80% of which had not previously been applied in Russian machine building, the latest know-how of Siemens in driving units and control systems will be integrated. Components of the electric driving units for the new Urals locomotives will be supplied by the St Petersburg-based company Siemens Electroprivod.

As part of the agreement, the companies also signed a plan for localizing production of Siemens components in Russia. At the production facilities of the Urals Railway Machinery Plant, where the joint venture will be based, an additional 800 jobs will be created.

The project to build 2ES10 locomotives will boost the creation of new jobs, as well as investment in the Russian and German companies involved.