With a population of 3 million people Salvador is the third largest city in Brazil and has had a turbulent history: Once the major port for slave trade in the New World, Bahia used to be the capital of the Portuguese-speaking country for 200 years. This secret claim for leadership is unmistakably still visible today.
Bahia state is one of Brazil‘s up-and-coming, dynamic regions and has set lofty goals for its public transport. An imposing main depot for the Salvador Metro was built in only two years construction time. The metro system’s construction is divided into six phases that connect the city centre with Pirajá and in the next stage of expansion with the neighbouring community Lauro de Freitas through line 1 and line 2. The finished system will include a 41.8-kilometre, 22-station railway line. In addition, greater Salvador is set to connect the metro, city train and tram network with the bus system to improve public transport.
In June 2015, after one year of operation, the metro line already counted six million passengers and a daily average of 42,000 people in one month. By the end of 2015 the daily average had even increased to 45,500 passengers.
Of course the responsible executives had carefully selected the necessary equipment for the depot with high expertise. And could there be a better place for finding the right supplier than the InnoTrans fair in Berlin?
Therefore José Carlos Castilho Kako (head of maintenance CCR Metro Bahia) and Markus Mader (EMME2 Industria) set off to Berlin in 2014. At ZAGRO Group’s booth the TERBERG/ZAGRO road/rail vehicle with a service weight of 29 tons drew their interest. After a successful dialogue Wolfgang Zappel, managing director of ZAGRO Bahn- & Baumaschinen GmbH, travelled to the customer’s site in Brazil in February 2015 and concluded the contract for one vehicle.
On the Salvador Metro railway the TERBERG/ZAGRO road/rail vehicle can implement its full performance: With its service weight of 29 tons, shunting operation in a gradient of up to 43‰ is no problem for the vehicle.
The machine was delivered to the customer and put into operation in December 2015. CCR Metro Bahia’s crew is evidently proud of their new vehicle and delighted about its high tractive power.
The metro project’s high significance for the whole region was also visible at the official opening ceremony: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Bahia region‘s governor attended the festivities.