The battle for the underground: Skoda to compete with Siemens for metro business

Just about every tram and trolleybus now operating in the Czech Republic was built by a company now owned by the transport engineering company Skoda Holding. But while the Plzen-based company is the undisputed master of the above ground rails, having bought out or partnered with the country's leading bus and railroad manufacturing companies, it has been less successful on its home turf underground, which has been the domain of the German engineering group Siemens.

The Prague metro system, which turned 30 last year, now transports some 400 million passengers each year along its fifty-odd kilometres of tracks. In a few short years, the system is due to for a major expansion; the C line that runs north to south is currently being expanded, and a whole new line is planned.

Siemens, the German engineering concern, won the tender to outfit the C line with new trains, to replace the Soviet-era fleet destined for the scrap heap. But the A and B metro lines are still up for grabs, and with planning for a fourth D line underway, and talk of a fifth, dozens of new subway carriages will be needed: the engineering giant Skoda Holding wants a piece of the action underground.

Skoda Holding has been cranking out trams and trolleys, buses and metro cars for export to places like the United States and Russia for over a decade and until now has been content to focus on the lucrative export market. But company managers believe the will have an easier time competing for foreign contracts if they can also point to success on the domestic market.

Skoda Holding began testing a prototype metro train late last summer. It is the first underground carriage line entirely of its own production. Previously, the Plzen-based company had concentrated on modernising the bulky Russian-made carriages.

But the company has now made clear that it wants its new model to run on the Prague metro and so will go head-to-head with Siemens in a couple of years, when the tender to outfit the B metro line is officially launched.