NORWAY: VR FleetCare has completed the first of 34 Norske Tog Class 72 commuter trains at Tillberga in Sweden. The programme replaces a 36-train contract Norske Tog terminated with Alstom in 2025.
VR FleetCare, the maintenance and wagon-building arm of Finnish state operator VR Group, said the first train was finished on schedule. The job is its first rolling stock modernisation project carried out in Sweden. The remaining trains will follow in phases, with all 34 due by 2029.
Norske Tog, the Norwegian state’s rolling stock company, owns the trains and leases them to Vy Tog and Go-Ahead. Its own fleet listing puts 24 of the units on Vy’s L1 commuter line between Spikkestad, Oslo and Lillestrøm and 12 on the Jæren Line between Stavanger and Egersund, operated by Go-Ahead. Under the Alstom contract, every train was to be back in service by the end of 2025.
Programme runs to 2029
The work is being done in workshop premises at Tillberga, north-east of Västerås. VR FleetCare has not said how many trains it will handle at a time or when the second is due. The scope covers refurbishment and upgrades intended to extend the fleet’s life and improve passenger comfort.
“The completion of the first train on schedule is an important milestone for the project. It also shows that our new partnership model enables us to launch modernisation projects quickly and deliver them efficiently, even outside our own production facilities,” said Peter Guldbrand, head of sales and project management at VR FleetCare.
The Alstom contract covered all 36 Class 72 trains and the new one covers 34. Neither Norske Tog nor VR FleetCare has explained the difference, or whether the two trains Alstom took in are among the 34.
The Alstom contract
Norske Tog signed with Alstom in 2021 for a mid-life upgrade of the full fleet, a contract Norske Tog valued at around NOK 700m (EUR 70m) at the time. All 36 trains were to be finished by the end of 2025. The work was carried out at Alstom’s workshops in Motala and Västerås.
By July 2025, Alstom had taken in two trains, neither of which Norske Tog counted as finished. One of the two had been rebuilt and sent to Norway in December 2024 for testing, ahead of a handover that never took place. Norske Tog terminated the contract that month, and its rolling stock director, Kjell Arthur Abrahamsen, said the delays had made the contract’s objective unattainable.
Norske Tog said at the time that it would carry out the necessary upgrades itself, and that both operators supported the decision. A separate component upgrade programme has since run in Norway with Vy and the maintenance company Dahlrail, and is not part of the mid-life modernisation now contracted to VR FleetCare. Alstom has been asked for comment.
Work outside the contractor’s own plants
VR FleetCare describes the Tillberga job as a new partnership model that lets it run modernisation projects outside its own facilities, which are in Finland. The Tillberga workshop is operated by Stadler Service Sweden, which bought the site’s previous operator Swedtrac in 2018, and the depot property belongs to Swedish state property company Jernhusen.
The contract adds to VR FleetCare’s Swedish workload. In February the company signed with Swedish leasing company Transitio for heavy maintenance of bogies and main power switches on 60 Stadler-built Dosto double-deck EMUs between 2026 and 2030.
In January it moved the first X40 train belonging to Swedish state operator SJ from Sweden to Oulu by rail on transfer bogies of its own design, built to bring standard-gauge stock into Finland for maintenance.
Norske Tog has not said what the new arrangement costs, or how the 34-train schedule is spread across the years to 2029.