RE 420 Locomotive

Sersa Schweiz invests in efficient traction and transport means for rail-bound construction site and bulk goods logistics.

At the end of 2019, Sersa Schweiz took over its first electric main-line locomotive from the railway company Travys in Yverdon: a four-axle Re 420 electric locomotive weighing around 80 tonnes with an hourly output of 4700KW. 

The locomotive is in a very good technical condition and has proven itself in daily use for freight and passenger transport. It is used as a main-line/reserve locomotive for transporting beets to the Aarberg sugar factory every autumn, from September to December, as a means of traction for our trains with track construction machines. It provides valuable support, in particular for short-term and time-critical transports as well as for construction and bulk goods trains, including in cooperation with other railway companies.

So far, it has already brought large quantities of ‘sweet cargo’ (i.e. sugar beets) and many track construction machines to their destination on time.

Sersa Schweiz intends to use multifunctional – and multimodal – freight wagons for rail-bound construction site and bulk goods logistics in the future. The ideal vehicle for this purpose was a 48'-long (1' = approx. 30.48cm) container car developed by the wagon hire company Wascosa AG, Lucerne. It is a four-axle, relatively short car in a modern design with low-noise brakes and a maximum speed of 120km/h, among other benefits, while at the same time offering a high payload. Various containers and swap bodies (such as bulk goods containers, silo containers or flatbed trailers) can be loaded on the car thanks to flexibly arranged container pins. The first 20 cars have now arrived in Switzerland and will soon go into service.