ÖBB constructs new maintenance hub for night trains
Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) started to construct a new hall at Vienna Simmering station. It will be dedicated to the maintenance of the night trains. The facility will be completed in March 2022.
ÖBB Technische Services, a maintenance division of Austrian Federal Railways, is currently investing more than 225 million euros in improving and expanding its workshops across Austria. Within this programme, the company plans to construct a new maintenance hall at Vienna Simmering (Wien Simmering) station. The facility will be solely focused on technical services for the night trains running under the brand name ‘Nightjet’. To this end, ÖBB will allocate 38.5 million euros. The groundbreaking ceremony of the construction works took place on Friday, 21 August. ÖBB plans to put the new facility into operation in March 2022.
New hub in Simmering
The Simmering workshop is one of ÖBB’s five largest maintenance facilities. It has been a central cornerstone for the company’s maintenance services of long-distance trains for many years. The new, state-of-the-art maintenance hall will be a hub for the new Nightjet trainsets. All the maintenance operations, from small service activities to repairs and major overhauls, will be carried out here. The Nightjet maintenance hall will have an area of 5,500 square metres. It will be equipped with two elevated tracks, integrated crane systems, bogie lowering system, train preheating system and other solutions.
Nightjet network
ÖBB set the course for the expansion of its network of the international night train connections. In this January it launched the Nightjet service between Vienna and Brussels. For December, the Austrian operator scheduled to add Amsterdam to its network. To this end, ÖBB is planning to purchase 13 new Nightjet trainsets. These vehicles will be maintained in Simmering.
Currently, ÖBB has the largest network of night international trains in Europe, which now comprises 19 lines. The Nightjet trains run from Austria to Belgium, Czechia, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. Some of the Nightjet connections are performed in a partnership with other railway operators: PKP Intercity in Poland, České dráhy in Czechia, MÁV-Start in Hungary, HŽ Putnički prijevoz in Croatia.
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