General Electric Co. announced Thursday that it has signed a contract to manufacture and ship, in 2008, 10 Model 310 Evolution Series locomotives for Kazakhstan’s national railway company, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ).
KTZ will use the locomotives to move large amounts of goods and materials, due to an incresed demand for transit, intermodal traffic and petroleum products.
The 10 locomotives will be produced at GE Transportation’s locomotive manufacturing facility in Erie, Penn.
Production and shipment of key components for 300 additional locomotives is scheduled from 2008 through 2012, with final assembly at a new locomotive assembly plant in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan.
The Kazakhstan Evolution locomotives, designed specifically for operation in Kazakhstan and the CIS region, will be the first Evolution locomotives to be delivered outside of North America and will be the most environmentally clean diesel locomotives in the CIS region.
Evolution Series locomotives achieve a 3 percent to 5 percent fuel savings over the previous generation of GE locomotives and reduce emissions by more than 40 percent.
Total value of the contract is more than $650 million.
