MADRID, January 7. /Dunyo IA/. Spanish company Talgo has signed a comprehensive ten-year contract with company O’zbekiston Temir Yo’llari to provide technical maintenance for six Talgo 250 trains currently operating in the country, valued at around 80 million euros, reports Dunyo IA correspondent.

According to the Spanish news outlet “El Mundo Financiero”, the contract was signed after more than 15 years of cooperation under various agreements and has become Talgo’s largest technical maintenance contract in Uzbekistan.

“It has helped consolidate the presence of Spanish high-speed rail technology in Central Asia, a story that began in Uzbekistan in 2009 with the purchase of two nine-car Talgo 250 trains, which entered service in 2011”, publication says.

The Talgo 250 trains have a maximum commercial operating speed of up to 230 km/h, while their design speed is 275 km/h. In 2011, a second contract was signed for the delivery of two additional eleven-car trainsets, which have been in service since 2017.

In 2019, O’zbekiston Temir Yo’llari expanded its fleet by adding two more Talgo 250 trains, each consisting of eleven cars, as well as four additional cars. As a result, the two trains delivered under the first contract were extended to eleven cars each and began operating in 2021.

In Uzbekistan, Talgo 250 trains operate under a scheme similar to Spain’s Class 130 and 730 trains, which are serviced by company Alvia. They are equipped with natural tilting technology, allowing higher speeds on curved sections of track by tilting the car bodies. Unlike the Spanish models, they do not require gauge-changing equipment in Uzbekistan, as they run on a fixed 1,520-millimetre gauge.