Stadler Reinickendorf GmbH was founded as a new company in March 2011, with a view to manufacturing bodyshells for rail vehicles at the site. After three months of intensive work, Stadler Reinickendorf can now take pride in its first success. The first bodyshell for the double-decker multiple-unit train KISS for East German railway company ODEG was transferred to Stadler Pankow GmbH in Berlin overnight from 31 May to 1 June 2011.

All internal fittings and fixtures will now be installed at Pankow. They comprise, among other things, the floors, seats, toilets and all electrical components, including driver consoles. The KISS will then roll on to the rails for its first tests in autumn this year.

“We still have hard work ahead,” explains Michael Daum, Director of Stadler Pankow GmbH. “The body now completed is just the first module of the four-part vehicle. The second shell is now also in production.”

The double-decker multiple-unit train KISS for ODEG will run on the Berlin–Brandenburg urban railway network from 2012. ODEG has ordered a total of 16 double-decker multiple-unit trains, six GTW trains and one Regio-Shuttle RS1 for operation on its regional railway lines.

Stadler Rail Group, system supplier of customer-specific solutions for rail vehicle construction, has locations in Switzerland (Altenrhein, Bussnang, Winterthur and Biel), in Germany (Berlin-Pankow, Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, Berlin-Reinickendorf and Velten), in Poland, in Hungary, in the Czech Republic, in Italy, in Algeria and in the USA. The Group has a workforce of about 3,500 people. The best-known vehicle series from Stadler Rail Group are the double-decker multiple-unit train KISS (133 trains sold), the FLIRT (669), the articulated multiple-unit train GTW (551) and the Regio-Shuttle RS1 (495) in the railway segment, and the Variobahn (284 trams sold) and the Tango (101) in the tram segment. Furthermore, Stadler Rail manufactures metre-gauge trains, passenger carriages and locomotives and is the world’s leading manufacturer of rack-and-pinion rail vehicles.