OREANDA-NEWS. February 13, 2015. Alstom has been awarded a 15-year service contract worth €125 million by Serco to maintain 75 passenger cars on the “Caledonian Sleeper” trains, one of only two sleeper services in the UK. Alstom has been providing maintenance services for the “Caledonian Sleeper” trains for more than a decade.

During the first three years, the Alstom teams will carry out preventive and corrective maintenance work, while also ensuring that the cars continue to function to their highest potential. From 2018, Serco will acquire a new fleet which will also be maintained by Alstom for the final 12 years of the contract. The maintenance will be mainly carried out at Alstom Polmadie (Glasgow) and Wembley (London) traincare centres.

“We are delighted to continue maintaining the Caledonian Sleeper trains, especially as the new vehicles come into service, offering an upgraded experience for passengers. This is a significant long-term contract for Alstom that highlights Alstom’s maintenance capabilities across a range of trains in the UK”, said Terence Watson, President of Alstom UK.

“It’s clear that guest experience is going to be key to our success, and the high quality of our sleeper trains requires the highest level of maintenance quality which is why we’ve agreed this 15-year contract with Alstom,” said Peter Strachan, Serco’s Managing Director for the Caledonian Sleeper.

The Caledonian Sleeper trains currently run from London Euston to five Scottish termini – Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Fort William, Glasgow and Inverness – and carry 270,000 passengers annually. Alstom is carrying out regular maintenance works on the fleet during checks every eight days and further checks every 66 days to ensure vehicles present a suitably high standard.

Alstom is a leader in train maintenance with now 20 years of experience. More than 200 clients trust Alstom to deliver efficient quality services. Twenty percent of the trains maintained by Alstom were built by other manufacturers, which will be the case for this contract.