Metro Line 1 will launch Chinese-made trains and the National Union of Workers of the Collective Transport System (STC) wants to participate in the final assembly of the convoys.
STC director Guillermo Calderón said the seeded train will be manufactured in China by contractor CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive, a subsidiary of China Railways, but the rest would be assembled in Mexico. Therefore, the Syndicate has already raised its hand.
In a letter addressed to the engineer Calderón Aguilera, the general secretary of the Metro majority union, Fernando Espino Arévalo, reiterated “the interest of the Metro workers to participate in the final assembly work of the Chinese-made trains, for which we count with technical personnel specialized in rolling stock, which guarantees the highest quality of the work to be carried out ”. The text was sent on Thursday to the leadership of the STC.
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On December 18 of last year, the Metro signed a contract with the Chinese consortium CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive and CRRC (Hong Kong) Co (as well as its Mexican subsidiary MEXIRRC), for an amount of 37 thousand 374 million 793 thousand 058.08 pesos to be paid in 19 years, for the comprehensive modernization of Line 1 (which last September celebrated 52 years in operation) and which includes a batch of 29 new trains with greater process automation capacity.
It will be next year when the modernization process begins, which also includes changes to the roads, communication, signaling, electrical and electronic systems. According to the director of the STC, Guillermo Calderón, the executive projects are currently being completed and at the same time “work is being done on the manufacturing of the trains, they will be assembled here (in Mexico), but the different components are being defined. The first seeded train comes from China ”.
In this regard, the union leader justified the participation of his members in the assembly of the Chinese trains, arguing that the workers had previously participated in the assembly of a batch of 10 trains manufactured by the Spanish company CAF, which circulate on Line 1.
“By responding to our request, it will be possible to detect in a timely manner the probable deficiencies that may arise, thereby avoiding failures in the service offered by the Metro.
“It is important to clarify that the CRRC company, as is known, does not have any experience in the manufacture and operation of trains on tires (…) Our proposal offers advantages to the manufacturer of the trains, so that it can deliver a product in accordance with the needs of the Metro (…) We guarantee that with the participation of the technical personnel of rolling stock it would help a lot to have trains that operate in optimal conditions ”, said Espino.
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In decline and 52 years old, Metro Line 1 points to autonomous trains
Autonomous trains?
As reported Forbes Mexico On October 5, the Mexico City Metro will receive one less train in exchange for the reconstruction of the Central Control Post (PCC) for lines 1 to 6, which was damaged in the fire of January 9. Thus, the Chinese company CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive, a subsidiary of China Railways, will no longer deliver 30 but 29 new trains, adapted with a pilot system that would allow their autonomous operation.
The trains, which should start to be delivered from 2023, will be equipped with a Communications-Based Train Control System (CBTC), which allows knowing the exact position of each train by means of devices installed on the tracks and the rolling stock.
All the information generated by the train is sent every few seconds to a centralized command post that automatically calculates the distance that each train is authorized to travel safely, which allows the trains to circulate almost one after the other in a safe, increasing its frequency of passage and its transportation capacity.
A CBTC system has different levels of automation that define the human interventions to be carried out to drive the trains. These levels (degree of automation) range from GoA0 to GoA4. In the case of Line 1, a GoA3 with GoA4 functions is foreseen.
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Systra, a subsidiary of the Paris Metro, explained that at level 3 “the piloting of the train and the control of the doors are carried out entirely by the driving automatism in automatic driving mode. If the stations are heavily loaded and the stopping times must be temporarily extended for the exchange of passengers, the handling of the doors can be done by the agent (person) ”.
At this level, “the surveillance of the track is carried out by the automatisms and the agent handles extraordinary situations, to give information to passengers, request the stop or displacement of a train in an emergency”.
Meanwhile, in the GoA4 “the presence of an agent on board is no longer necessary. The train’s traction and brake controls, the monitoring of the track and the handling of emergency situations are carried out by the automatisms ”. In the case of Line 1, some GoA4 functions will be incorporated.
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