We like visiting factories. One by one we take you on a tour through the various facilities across Europe where new locomotives are being built. Earlier on, we already gave you a little taste of what was to come, now we have a more extensive set of pictures from Belfort, in the outer north-eastern part of France, where Alstom builds its locomotives and TGV/Avelia power cars.
We like to thank Theo Stolz for his support and Henk Zwoferink for his input and photos.
Like many rolling stock factories, this one has a long history and has seen better times. In Belfort many legendary locomotives came to live, such as the ‘nez-cassées’ and the original Eurostar for example. We have been in Belfort in 2006 (Prima production), 2008 (PrimaII presentation), and 2012 (Kazakhstan KZ8A roll-out) and have seen things changing over the years. the Belfort plant has a strong focus on locomotives, but Alstom has not been able to land contracts for its most recent products, in Europe that is. The Prima and PrimaII products, in the end, could not compete with Bombardier’s TRAXX and Siemens’ Vectron platforms.
Alstom Belfort products under construction 2006-2012:
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