Italian trains arrive at the port of Pecém

The disembarkation of the first two trains that shall operate on the South line of the Fortaleza Metro System took place yesterday morning and afternoon, at the Port of Pecém, in São Gonçalo do Amarante. At that time, the President of the Ceará State Metropolitan Train Company (Companhia Cearense de Trens Metropolitanos – Metrofor), Rômulo Fortes, said that this action proves that schedules have been complied with and that a dream of ten years is due to become reality.

The operation involved transporters and technicians of the Italian company, as well as engineers from Metrofor. The equipment left Naples, in the South of Italy, on 19 July on the boat Nanuk, which arrived in Pecém last Saturday.

Rômulo Fortes has informed us that the trains should be assembled while still at Pecém. One of these trains shall be taken to Engenheiro João Felipe Station, where it shall be on view to the public, and another one to Carlito Benevides Station in Pacatuba, formerly known as Vila das Flores station.

The vehicles shall be towed by a locomotive owned by Metrofor, both to João Felipe Station and to Carlito Benevides Station. There, the trains shall be tested in their static and dynamic stages.

Our schedule plans that new trains shall arrive as from April. This means that every month two trains shall be arriving at Pecém, said the President of Metrofor. He remembered that the first idea was to resort to the national industry, but the national companies did not turn up at the two tender processes held by the State.

The trains are manufactured by Italian company Ansaldo Breda. The Project Manager, Raffael Evangelista, informed that the delivery schedule is ensured, as well as the training of the operators and also of the maintenance teams.

The trains are electric, each with a length of 40 meters and capacity to hold 445 passengers, of which 50 seated. The vehicles, made of aluminum, can travel at high speed, and can reach up to 120 kilometers per hour in less than a minute. The same company has already supplied electric trains to Italy, Spain and the United States.

The trains shall operate on the South Line of the Fortaleza Metro System, a line which shall connect the center of the city to the neighboring towns of Maracanaú and Pacatuba. The section is used by 350 thousand people per day. The expectation is that the line shall start to operate by the end of next year.