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Alstom Citadis

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Alstom Citadis

The Citadis is a family of low-floor trams (streetcars) and light rail vehicles built by Alstom. More than 1140 Citadis trams are in use in over 28 cities, including: Bordeaux, Grenoble, Lyon, Montpellier, Rouen, Orléans, the Paris area, Nottingham, Algiers, Oran, Constantine, Barcelona, Dubai, Dublin, Istanbul, Gdańsk, Katowice, Adelaide, Melbourne, Jerusalem, Rabat, Casablanca, Tunis, Rotterdam and Rio de Janeiro. An evolution of Alstom's earlier TFS vehicle, most Citadis trams are made in Alstom's factories in La Rochelle, Reichshoffen and Valenciennes, France, and in Barcelona, Spain, and Annaba, Algeria. Also, Gaziantep bought second-hand TFS's from Rouen.

Contents

Competitors to the Citadis include Bombardier Transportation's Flexity family, Siemens's Combino, Avenio, S70/Avanto trams and LRVs, CAF's Urbos, Škoda ForCity and other Škoda tramcars, AnsaldoBreda Sirio, TMK 2200 from Crotram and Kinki Sharyo LRVs.

Citadis types

The Citadis family includes both partial and fully low-floor trams and LRVs, in versions with three (20x), five (30x), seven (40x), and nine (50x) sections. It comprises the following standard variants:

Articulated models

  • Citadis 100 – three section, 70% low floor, originally designed and manufactured by Konstal in Chorzów for the Polish market (Katowice, Gdańsk)
  • Citadis 202 – three section, 100% low floor (Melbourne)
  • Citadis 301 – three section, 70% low floor (Orléans)
  • Citadis 301 CIS – 100% low floor version with IPOMOS bogies on 1,524 mm (5 ft) gauge (Moscow, Saint-Petersburg). Own Russian name according unifying system of rolling stock classification: 71-801.
  • Citadis 302 – five sections, 100% low floor (Algiers, Adelaide, Lyon, Bordeaux, Paris T2 and T7, Valenciennes, Rotterdam, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Melbourne, Nice, Murcia, Barcelona, Jerusalem, Le Havre and Nottingham)
  • Citadis 401 – five sections, 70% low floor (Montpellier and Dublin, some converted from 301s)
  • Citadis 402 – seven sections, 100% low floor (Bordeaux, Dublin, Grenoble, Lyon, Paris T3, Dubai, Rio de Janeiro, Oran, Constantine)
  • Citadis 502 – nine sections, 100% low floor (Dublin)
  • Citadis 403 – variant of the 402, with modified end bogie design (Strasbourg)
  • Citadis X04 (204, 304, 404) – 100% low floor, next generation design for Central and Eastern Europe (Istanbul)
  • Citadis X05 (205, 305, 405) – 100% low floor, next generation design for worldwide export (Sydney, Nice, Caen, Paris, Kaohsiung)

    • Specialty models

  • Regio-Citadis – three sections, 70% low floor tram-train (Kassel, The Hague, Salzgitter)
  • Citadis Dualis – 42 m (137 ft 9 1⁄2 in) or 52 m (170 ft 7 1⁄4 in) long, 100% low-floor tram-train (operated by the SNCF, see below)
  • Citadis Compact – 22 m (72 ft 2 1⁄8 in) long, 100% low floor (Aubagne, Avignon)
  • Citadis Spirit – 100% low floor LRV designed for the North American market (Ottawa)

    • Tram-trains

    The “Regio-Citadis” variant is designed for tram-train operation, with trams running on mainline railway tracks; it is used on RegioTram Kassel and RandstadRail in and around The Hague. This train type can be built as a dual-voltage or electro-diesel vehicle with various configurations (diesel / 600 V DC, 600 V DC / 15 kV  16 2⁄3 Hz or 600 V DC / Bioenergy / diesel).

    The Regio-Citadis model has now been superseded by "Citadis-Dualis", redesigned to operate on the same lines as regional trains (on the TER (Transport express régional) network in France) at up to 100 km/h (62 mph), compared to 70 km/h (43 mph) for the standard Citadis tram), and for stop spacings ranging from 0.5 to 5 km (0.31 to 3.11 mi). A total of 31 sets have been ordered (plus 169 on option) by the SNCF at an average cost of €3.2 million per train set (about $4.94 million or £2.5 million).

    Power supply

    Like most trams, Citadis vehicles are usually powered by overhead electric wires collected by a pantograph, but the trams in several places do not use pantograph current collection entirely.

    The most popular solution is Alstom's proprietary ground-level power supply (APS, first used in Bordeaux and subsequently in Angers, Reims, Orleans, Tours, Dubai, Rio de Janeiro, and in the future, Sydney), consisting of a third rail which is only powered while it is completely covered by a tram so that there is no risk of a person or animal coming into contact with a live rail. On the networks in France and in Sydney, the trams switch to conventional overhead wires in outer areas, but the Dubai vehicles are the first to employ APS for its entire passenger length (although they are still equipped with pantographs for use in the maintenance depot).

    Another option is to use on-board batteries to store electrical power, allowing brief periods of catenary-free operation without the need to install special infrastructure. The Citadis trams in Nice operate off a set of nickel metallic hydride batteries in two large open spaces where overhead wires would be an eyesore.

    References

    Alstom Citadis Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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