State awards $317m railcar contract

The State Government has selected EDI Rail-Bombardier Transportation as the preferred tenderer for a $317 million major railcar maintenance and cleaning contract.

Transport minister Troy Buswell said the contract would run for seven and a half years with the option of an additional seven and a half years.

"The contract is worth about $317million for the first seven and a half year term, after allowing for escalation," Mr Buswell said.

"The new contract brings all the narrow-gauge railcar maintenance and cleaning under the one corporate roof - at the moment it is split between multiple contracts.

"It covers all the cleaning and maintenance work for the Public Transport Authority's (PTA) entire narrow-gauge rail fleet, which is a total of 239 railcars, at the Claisebrook, Nowergup and Mandurah depots.

"This includes all the older, A-series railcars, including the Australind, as well as the B-series railcars first acquired as part of the New MetroRail project.

"The contract also makes provision for future growth in the rail network."

The Public Transport Authority will now enter into final negotiations with EDI-BT. Subject to the successful completion of these negotiations, the contract is expected to be signed by June 30 and take effect from January 2012.

Under the existing arrangement, EDI-BT maintains the B-series fleet at Nowergup and Mandurah while the A-series fleet and the Australind are serviced in-house at Claisebrook under labour hire contracts with Downer EDI Engineering Power Ltd and Spotless Pty Ltd, managed by the PTA.