First train manufactured by the Chinese CRRC is pushed to the limits during overnight tests. New units should receive passengers in the first half of the year
Fonte: ECO
The first of the 18 new trains of Metro do Porto is already testing the line. While the city sleeps, a team of 15 technicians starts the three-car composition manufactured by the Chinese company CRRC. The tests on the line will last for another two months before it can start receiving passengers from the districts of Porto, Vila Nova Gaia, Matosinhos and Gondomar, still in the first semester.
The dynamic tests are done in about four hours, while Metro do Porto is without passenger service. From the maintenance workshops of Guifões, the train leaves after 1h30, on its way to the station of Fonte do Cuco, where it will enter in the underground network. The vehicle is heavier than ever: inside the compositions there are hundreds of sandbags, which weigh 17 tons, the equivalent to the maximum load supported by each unit (244 passengers).
With the bags placed on the floor, one has to be even more careful when walking inside the train in order not to hit the bars that allow standing users. The low height of the bars - especially for passengers with less than 1,80 meters - was one of the main complaints presented when the vehicle was on display at Trindade station, in mid-February.
Metro do Porto assures that it will try to correct this and other situations "as much as possible", because "it is necessary to understand if later they can be reversed", points out to ECO the responsible for the rolling stock, Armando Sena.
The "smile train" is also full of wires and sensors, installed above and below, and connected to boxes placed in the middle of the vehicle. The devices allow the behaviour of the train to be evaluated during tests, to verify if the door sensors are working and to confirm the voltage of the catenary and the pantograph. There is also a laser to check the distance between the train and the platform.
The team performing overnight tests is a triangle of nationalities: the driver and the workshop technician accompanying him are Portuguese; the team supervising the tests is Italian; the CRRC technicians have come from China for these tests. English is the common language, although there are a few mishaps.
For now, the CRRC train runs between 5 and 17 km/h.
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