While France is on the radar of most European manufacturers (Alstom, Siemens, Stadler) trying to get their new electric locomotives approved for operation here, the main work of pulling freight trains here lies on the shoulders of two-voltage (BB27000) and tri-voltage (BB37000) Alstom Prima locomotives. They were made between 2001 and 2006 and thus have twenty years of operation behind them.
After the market liberalisation, Fret SNCF was overpowered due to losing market share and provided 70 of the BB27000 and 60 of the BB37000/37500 locomotives to Akiem. Today, the leasing company owns over 150 of them and has been successfully offering them on the domestic market.
With half of their lifetime gone, Akiem has decided to make a general overhaul of these locomotives. It named it MLO – mid-life operation. The aim is to provide stable reliability and operational availability of these locomotives for the next ten to twenty years. Part of the general upgrade will also be the increase in comfort to keep them up to the standard of today and the future. The MLO program should finish in 2028.
In the 45th calendar week of 2023, Akiem also presented this program to some of its customers using these locomotives (Captrain France, COMBIRAIL, Europorte, Fret SNCF and Lineas) at the Valenciennes site.
