Ufuk Yalçın, General Manager of TCDD Taşımacılık A.Ş., Turkey Rail System Vehicles Industry Inc. (TÜRASAŞ) participated in the name registration ceremony of Turkey's first electric Eskişehir-5000 mainline locomotive manufactured in Eskişehir facilities.
At the ceremony, after TÜRASAŞ General Manager Mustafa Metin Yazar, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Fatih Dönmez said: “This project was decided to be supported in 2017. The most powerful vehicle ever designed in Turkey. E5000 means 5 thousand kilowatts. Since the beginning of the project, 157 of our engineers have shed their minds here. Various parts of the locomotive were procured from approximately 115 domestic suppliers, which again contributed greatly to the reduction of the current account deficit. The rate of locality used in the locomotive is 65 percent, but I hope we have a target to increase this figure above 80 percent," he said.
We Received Negotiation Offers for the Locomotive
Minister Dönmez explained that although the tests of the locomotive have not been completed yet, they have received interview offers from some countries and that the Eskişehir-5000 electric mainline locomotive has a very clear path in this sense, and said, “Train Control and Monitoring System (Train Control and Monitoring System, which is one of the components with the greatest added value in the rail vehicle sector, which only a few developed countries in the world have). The main line locomotive, whose production was completed with 100 percent domestic and national design of TCMS) and control systems, was built and used in domestic software for the first time in this product. It will be used for both passenger and freight transport. At the same time, this locomotive has been certified in accordance with the European Union's railway interoperability agreement and specification. This will be available to us not only on our own line in Turkey, but also in various parts of Europe and the world. As a matter of fact, even before the tests were finished, interview offers came from Europe and from various parts of the world. In other words, the front of Eskişehir 5000 is open. Let's produce it in a timely manner. The number of locomotives to be produced here is planned as 20 in the first place. It is planned to increase up to 95 in the following period. In-house, low-speed walking tests have also begun. These tests are still ongoing. Within the scope of mass production, orders for critical equipment were also placed. Production works continue in accordance with the production schedule," he said.
URAYSİM Test Center Completed Majorly
Minister Dönmez stated that the construction of the National Rail Systems Test and Research Center (URAYSİM), where the test and certification processes of locomotives will be carried out, continues in Eskişehir and that the test equipment will be installed soon, Minister Dönmez said, He proposed the name of the locomotive, which was previously launched as E5000, as 'Eskişehir 5000'. They approved, we say it suits our Eskişehir. We will now see the name of Eskişehir all over our country with this locomotive. But this does not cut us off, we want to see Eskişehir 5000 in Europe as well. We used to send these vehicles abroad for testing and certification. The queue was waiting for months, we had to pay our millions of foreign currency abroad. With the decision taken by our government, a test and certification center was established in Eskişehir under the name of URAYSİM. Our structures are largely complete. Test and hardware devices to be used inside are coming. Of course, the lines where these vehicles will be tested will be created in the same way. Because we need to do some tests on the line. This is an extremely critical facility for Eskişehir. By coming from abroad and using this center, not only for the rail system vehicles produced in Turkey, but also for how we send and pay for the tests we send abroad, they will have the test and certification procedures done here. We will provide a foreign currency inflow. In this sense, I hope that the board of directors of URAYSİM is coming together for the first time and that the first meeting will be beneficial.”