Page 29 - Mantena Annual Report 2021

In 2020, Mantena was awarded licence and safety certificates A and B to drive trains without passengers or freight on the national rail network
in Norway. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, train driving did not start until 2021.
First drive
After much preparation and planning, Mantena took its first independent drive on the national rail network in Norway in January 2021. This followed the completion of work on an Itino train set owned by Transitio in Sweden. The train set was delivered by Mantena to the border station at Charlottenberg, and a similar train set was taken back to Grorud for scheduled work.
Our first run was driven by Syed Hussain, who is a train driver and traffic safety training officer in Mantena’s safety and quality department. Since this first trip, there have been many similar trips to and from the border.
Better end-to-end provision
Roy Sannerhaugen is Director of quality, health and safety and environment at Mantena. He explains that the start
of train driving services represents an important step in the development of end-to-end maintenance provision.
-The fact that we can now drive trains means we can deliver a more complete product to customers, and together with the rail companies, we can offer more integrated service provision. For a railway company, there is a lot of train driving that is not commercial. This includes driving to and from workshops, positioning runs to get trains to the right place, and test driving after maintenance and repair work. Mantena wants to offer this sort of train driving to customers as part of its maintenance provision.
Aiming to expand the service
Sannerhaugen says Mantena is working to expand the train driving service for
customers who can see the advantage in a maintenance company providing delivery services.
-Right now, a significant proportion of our work is concerned with upgrades, painting and repair jobs, where the trains have to come into the workshops and stay there for a while. When we work on jobs like this, we also try to provide
a more complete service which also includes delivery back to the customer. Another example is that we want to extend the service to include delivery to the platform after maintenance work, for the railway companies to take over from there.
Driving in Sweden too
In Sweden, it is more common for maintenance firms to deliver the trains. Mantena in Sweden already has a safety certificate for shunting. In December 2020, this was extended to cover main lines. On 9 December 2020, Mantena drove its first train on the main line
in Sweden, from Kärråkra depot to Hässleholm Central. Just a few days later, on 13 December, our delivery service started on this route, to coincide with the start of the maintenance contract in Øresund.
Syed Hussain in front of EL-18 2244 on the first train driving job for Mantena
Markets and strategy
Annual Report 2021 29