Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (Grupo CAF, literally "Construction and Other Railway Services") is a Spanish publicly listed company which manufactures railway vehicles and equipment and buses through its
Solaris Bus & Coach subsidiary. It is based in
Beasain
Beasain is a town and municipality located in the Goierri region of the province of Gipuzkoa, in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, northern Spain. It has an important industry of railway vehicles and related equipment ( CAF) tha ...
,
Basque Autonomous Community,
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, ...
. Equipment manufactured by Grupo CAF includes
light rail vehicles,
rapid transit
Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be ...
trains,
railroad cars and
locomotives, as well as
variable gauge axles
A variable gauge system allows railway vehicles in a train to travel across a break of gauge between two railway networks with different track gauges.
For through operation, a train must be equipped with special bogies holding variable gauge wh ...
that can be fitted on any existing truck or
bogie.
Over the 20 years from the early 1990s, CAF benefited from the rail investment boom in its home market in Spain to become a world player with a broad technical capability, able to manufacture almost any type of rail vehicle.
CAF has supplied railway rolling stock to a number of major
urban transit
Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...
operators around Europe, the US, South America, East Asia, India, Australia and North Africa.
History
''CAF'' was an acronym for the earlier name of ''Compañía Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles'', as well as for ''Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles''.
Fábrica de Hierros San Martín
In 1860, Domingo Goitia, Martín Usabiaga and José Francisco Arana established this company, whose main activity was puddling furnaces and cylinder rolling.
La Maquinista Guipuzcoana
In 1892, Francisco de Goitia (Domingo Goitia's son and heir) joined the
Marquess of Urquijo to set up La Maquinista Guipuzcoana, whose main activity was the operation of machinery and the forging and construction of railway rolling stock.
In 1898, it set up its plant in
Beasain
Beasain is a town and municipality located in the Goierri region of the province of Gipuzkoa, in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, northern Spain. It has an important industry of railway vehicles and related equipment ( CAF) tha ...
,
Gipuzkoa
Gipuzkoa (, , ; es, Guipúzcoa ; french: Guipuscoa) is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the autonomous community of the Basque Country. Its capital city is Donostia-San Sebastián. Gipuzkoa shares borders with the French de ...
. In 1905 it changed its name to Fábrica de Vagones de Beasain (FVB).
Compañía Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles
Compañía Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) was founded in 1917, specializing in freight car production and with a total of 1,600 employees.
In 1940, the Irun factory was set up, following the expansion of activity after the Spanish Civil War (CAF took part in reconstructing the Spanish rail fleet).
In 1954, CAF took over Material Móvil y Construcciones (MMC) from
Zaragoza
Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Province of Zaragoza, Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Ara ...
(
Aragon
Aragon ( , ; Spanish and an, Aragón ; ca, Aragó ) is an autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces (from north to s ...
), a company with extensive experience in manufacturing long-distance and subway trains.
Since 1958, the company has modernized and enlarged its Beasain plant and expanded its activity to include all kinds of rolling stock. In line with this, in 1969 CAF created its
Research and Development Unit, which increased the company's competitiveness and intensified the focus on in-house technology.
Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles
In 1971, the existing Compañía Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) merged with Material Móvil y Construcciones (MMC) and the company adopted its current name ''Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles''.
Subsidiaries
CAF U.S.A., a wholly owned subsidiary of CAF, was incorporated in 1998
and is based in
Elmira, New York. It manufactures rolling stock for the North American market at a plant in Elmira that the company acquired from
ADtranz in 2000.
The company from Beasain continued its expansion during the third millennium.
On 24 May 2019, it announced the acquisition of the Swedish company Euromaint at a cost of circa €80 million, following other international contracts to supply Flemish and English railway and underground networks in 2017.
CAF Rolling Stock U.K. Ltd. is the CAF subsidiary in the United Kingdom. Its
factory
A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...
is based at Celtic Springs Business Park, at
Llanwern steelworks near
Newport, Wales
Newport ( cy, Casnewydd; ) is a city and county borough in Wales, situated on the River Usk close to its confluence with the Severn Estuary, northeast of Cardiff. With a population of 145,700 at the 2011 census, Newport is the third-larges ...
as a result of an agreement made between CAF and the
Welsh Government.
The Newport factory has built stock for
Transport for Wales
Transport for Wales (TfW; cy, Trafnidiaeth Cymru; cy, TrC, label=none) is a not-for-profit company owned by the Welsh Government and managed at arms length by its appointed board. TfW oversees the Transport for Wales Group (TfW Group) cons ...
,
Arriva Rail North, the
Docklands Light Railway, and potentially
High Speed 2
High Speed 2 (HS2) is a planned high-speed railway line in England, the first phase of which is under construction in stages and due for completion between 2029 and 2033, depending on approval for later stages. The new line will run from its m ...
if CAF win the bid process.
Train defects
In April 2014, two carriages of an
Urbos 3 tram in
Belgrade
Belgrade ( , ;, ; names in other languages) is the capital and largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. Nearly 1,166,763 mi ...
separated during passenger service, due to the cracking of screws connecting the cars. Half of the Belgrade tramway's CAF fleet were found to have been affected by similar cracking of screws in the two weeks prior to the incident.
In March 2016, 19
British Rail Class 332 units were taken out of service after a crack was discovered in the underframe of one unit during routine maintenance.
In December 2017, the
Besançon Tramway
Besançon (, , , ; archaic german: Bisanz; la, Vesontio) is the prefecture of the department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzerlan ...
in
Besançon,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
discovered cracks in their
Urbos 3s vehicles around the
bogie box area of the bodies, which in December 2020 CAF paid for remedial work to be performed with each unit affected requiring one month downtime for the work to be completed.
In April 2021, 22
British Rail Class 195 Civity units were temporarily removed from service after routine maintenance revealed a yaw damper bracket had detached from the body of unit 195121.
On June 11, 2021,
West Midlands Metro (operating between
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...
and
Wolverhampton,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
) were forced to suspend their services due to similar cracks being discovered in the
bogie box areas of their
Urbos 3s vehicles, with ongoing investigations continuing to identify any other issues relating to the cracks and to find options for remedial works to be performed.
Full service only began once more in February 2022.
On June 24, 2021,
Flytoget were forced to withdraw their entire
CAF Oaris
Oaris is a modular high-speed train platform developed by the Spanish manufacturer CAF.
Technical details
Oaris is a non-articulated electric multiple unit with distributed traction, enabling 4-car, 6-car and 8-car configurations. Each car hav ...
fleet after 19 days of service due to the discovery of cracks in the chassis. They remain out of service as of September 2022, with plans to reinstate them by the end of the year. In the meantime, CAF has paid an unknown amount to Flytoget in compensation.
Following on from these instances, in November 2021 the
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
transport minister
Rob Stokes
Robert Gordon Stokes (born 17 January 1975) is an Australian politician. Stokes is the New South Wales Minister for Infrastructure, the Minister for Cities, and the Minister for Active Transport in the Perrottet ministry since 21 December 2 ...
announced that the
Sydney L1 Dulwich Hill Line would be decommissioned for up to 18 months, due to serious design flaws in all 12 of the CAF
Urbos 3s tram sets that were running on the line. Stokes stated that the flaws (in the bogie boxes) were likely to be far broader in scope than those identified in Sydney due to the thousands of the same tram type operated around the world.
In March 2022, the West Midlands Metro was again forced to suspend its services due to the discovery of more cracks, this time on the bodywork of the trams.
Political activity
During the
2019 United Kingdom general election, CAF Rail UK Limited made a donation of £50,000 to the
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
.
In 2019, it entered into litigation that affects its corporate image. Participating in a consortium, JNET, together with the Israeli company Shapir Engineering and Industry, has won a tender promoted by the Israeli
Ministry of Transport and Road Safety to supply railway equipment, in addition to building, extending and operating
light rail lines from Jerusalem to nearby
settlements in disputed territories, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. In turn, Shapir is on the list of companies that benefit from the occupation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as denounced by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Rolling stock
Carriages
*
Mark 4
*
Mark 5
*
Mark 5A
*
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...
Viewliner II
EMU and DMU
*
Cepia
*
Oaris
* Class 598
*
IZBAN E22000
The E22000 is an electric multiple unit built by CAF for use on the İZBAN commuter rail system. 33 sets of 3 train cars were built between 2010–11 and have been operating along the Northern and Southern lines in Izmir since 2010. The 2200 ...
* TRD
* TEMD
* TDMD
* Class 440
* Class 444
*
Civity
**
Sprinter New Generation
Sprinter New Generation or SNG: The Sprinter New Generation (abbreviated SNG) is an electrically driven type of trainset of the Dutch Railways or Nederlandse Spoorwegen. The trains are designed and built by the Spanish train builder Construccio ...
*
Civia
Civia is a class of electric multiple unit trains built by CAF and Siemens for the Renfe Cercanías commuter railway networks in Spain. The first units entered service in 2003.
The Civia train concept was created with passenger comfort and b ...
*
Class 446/
447
*
IE 29000 Class
*
AM class EMU, Auckland
*
VR Class Sm4
*
MTR Adtranz-CAF EMU
Locomotives
*
Class 250
*
Class 252
For
FEVE
Renfe Feve is a division of state-owned Spanish railway company Renfe Operadora. It operates most of Spain's of railway. This division of Renfe was previously a stand-alone company named FEVE (Ferrocarriles de Vía Estrecha,Law 11/1965 of ...
, now part of
Renfe Operadora:
*
Electro-diesel locomotive Class 1900
* Class 2600 DMU
* Class 2700 DMU
* Class 2900 DMU
For
Euskotren
Euskotren, formally known as Basque Railways ( eu, Eusko Trenbideak, es, Ferrocarriles Vascos), is a public railway company controlled by the Basque Government and officially established in 1982 to operate several narrow gauge railways insid ...
:
*
UT200
*
UT300
*
UT900
*
UT950
*
UT3500
* Euskotren XXI
For
Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca:
* DMU Class 61
* EMU Class 71
* EMU Class 81
For other operators:
* BITRAC CC 3600 (Class 601)
electro-diesel
An electro-diesel locomotive (also referred to as a dual-mode or bi-mode locomotive) is a type of locomotive that can be powered either from an electricity supply (like an electric locomotive) or by using the onboard diesel engine (like a diese ...
(Ordered by FESUR, currently operated by
Captrain España)
Metro
For Madrid:
* Class 300
* Class 1000
* Class 2000
* Class 3000
* Class 5000
* Class 6000
* Class 8000
* Class 8400
For Barcelona:
* Class 1000
* Class 2000
* Class 3000
* Class 4000
* Class 5000
* Class 6000
* Class S/2100
* Class S/300
For Helsinki:
*
M300
For Bucharest:
* BM3
For Amsterdam:
* Metromaterieel S3/M4
* Metromaterieel M7/M8
For Brussels:
*
Trams
*
Urbos 1 (Tranvía de Bilbao)
*
Urbos 2 (Tranvía de Vélez-Málaga, Tranvía de Vitoria and Metro de Sevilla).
*
Urbos 3 (Metrocentro de Sevilla, Tranvía de Zaragoza, Metropolitano de Granada, Metro de Málaga and Tranvía Metropolitano de la Bahía de Cádiz).
Outside Spain: trains
* Algeria: DMUs
* Argentina: 9 articulated units for
Tren de la Costa
* Brazil:
CPTM EMUs and
São Paulo Metrô
* Germany: Commuter train NEXIO for
Schönbuch Railway
The Schönbuch Railway (german: Schönbuchbahn) is a branch line in the Stuttgart region of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is single-track and standard gauge, and is long. It links Dettenhausen with Böblingen, where a connection is ...
* Hungary:
MÁV vagon
* Italy: DMUs for Sardinia
* Netherlands:
Sprinter New Generation
Sprinter New Generation or SNG: The Sprinter New Generation (abbreviated SNG) is an electrically driven type of trainset of the Dutch Railways or Nederlandse Spoorwegen. The trains are designed and built by the Spanish train builder Construccio ...
for the
Nederlandse Spoorwegen
Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS; ; en, "Dutch Railways") is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands. It is a Dutch state-owned company founded in 1938. The Dutch rail network is one of the busiest in the European Union, and t ...
.
* Portugal: EMUs (UQE´S) for Lisboa
* Saudi Arabia:
SAR/
SRO Diesel Push-Pull Trainsets
* UK:
British Rail Class 331
The British Rail Class 331 '' Civity'' is a class of electric multiple unit built by CAF, owned by Eversholt Rail Group, and currently operated by Northern Trains. A total of 43 units have been built31 three-car units and 12 four-car units. ...
(
Northern Trains
Northern Trains, branded as Northern, (legally Northern Trains Limited) is a publicly owned train operating company in England. It is owned by DfT OLR Holdings for the Department for Transport (DfT), after the previous operator Arriva Rail N ...
)
* UK:
British Rail Class 332 in partnership with
Siemens (
Heathrow Express)
* UK:
British Rail Class 333 in partnership with Siemens (
Arriva Trains Northern)
* UK: Northern Ireland Railways
Class 3000 and
Class 4000
* UK:
British Rail Class 397 (
TransPennine Express)
Newport factory, South Wales, UK
CAF Rolling Stock U.K. Ltd announced in 2017 its UK factory location was selected as Celtic Business Park at
Llanwern steelworks in
Newport,
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
. It has at least five confirmed UK projects from 2019 onwards and would have been the construction site for their unsuccessful bid to deliver
stock for High Speed 2. The site was funded with support from the
Welsh Government Inward Investment Programme.
* UK:
CAF Oaris
Oaris is a modular high-speed train platform developed by the Spanish manufacturer CAF.
Technical details
Oaris is a non-articulated electric multiple unit with distributed traction, enabling 4-car, 6-car and 8-car configurations. Each car hav ...
(
Prospective bid for HS2)
* UK:
British Rail Class 195 (
Northern Trains
Northern Trains, branded as Northern, (legally Northern Trains Limited) is a publicly owned train operating company in England. It is owned by DfT OLR Holdings for the Department for Transport (DfT), after the previous operator Arriva Rail N ...
)
* UK:
British Rail Class 196 (
West Midlands Trains)
* UK:
British Rail Class 197
The British Rail Class 197 is a class of diesel multiple unit passenger train built by CAF, based on its '' Civity'' platform. They are currently operated by Transport for Wales, split into 51 two-car units and 26 three-car units. The first tr ...
(
Transport for Wales
Transport for Wales (TfW; cy, Trafnidiaeth Cymru; cy, TrC, label=none) is a not-for-profit company owned by the Welsh Government and managed at arms length by its appointed board. TfW oversees the Transport for Wales Group (TfW Group) cons ...
)
Outside Spain: metros and trams
* Algeria:
Algiers Metro
The Algiers Metro ( ar, مترو الجزائر العاصمة, french: Métro d'Alger) is a rapid transit system that serves Algiers, the capital of Algeria. Originally designed in the 1970s, it opened in 2011 after decades of delays due to f ...
* Argentina:
Buenos Aires Underground 5000 and 6000 series;
Tren de la Costa
* Australia:
Canberra,
Newcastle and
Sydney light rail.
* Belgium:
Brussels Metro M6 and M7 Series
* Brazil:
São Paulo Metro
* Brazil:
Cuiabá tram
* Brazil:
Recife Metro
* Canada:
Calgary Transit Urbos 100 (On Order)
* Chile:
Santiago Metro
The Santiago Metro ( es, Metro de Santiago) is a rapid transit system serving the city of Santiago, the capital of Chile. It currently consists of seven lines (numbered 1-6 and 4A), 136 stations, and of revenue route. The system is managed by ...
* Colombia:
Medellín Metro
* Estonia:
Tallinn tram
* Finland:
Helsinki Metro
The Helsinki Metro ( fi, Helsingin metro, sv, Helsingfors metro) is a rapid transit system serving Greater Helsinki, Finland. It is the world's northernmost metro system. It was opened to the general public on 2 August 1982 after 27 years of ...
, M300 series
* France:
Nantes Tramway
* France:
Besançon Tramway
Besançon (, , , ; archaic german: Bisanz; la, Vesontio) is the prefecture of the department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzerlan ...
* Germany:
Freiburg tram and
Bonn Stadtbahn
The Bonn Stadtbahn ('' en, city rail'') is a part of the local public transit system in Bonn and the surrounding Rhein-Sieg area, that also includes the Bonn Straßenbahn. Although with six actual Stadtbahn lines (as well as three tram lines) ...
(on order)
* Hungary:
Debrecen public transport
* Hungary:
Budapest public transport
* India:
Delhi Airport Metro Express
* Indonesia:
Greater Jakarta LRT
* Italy:
Rome Metro
* Italy:
Naples Metro
* Luxembourg:
:fr:Tramway de Luxembourg Urbos 3
* Mexico:
Mexico City Metro (NE-92, NM-02, FE-07, FE-10, NE-16)
* Mexico:
Mexico City suburban rail
* Mexico:
Toluca–Mexico City commuter rail (under construction)
* Netherlands: S3 and M4 units of the
Amsterdam Metro and from 2018 the Uithof tram line in
Utrecht
* Norway:
Oslo trams, delivery from 2022
* Philippines:
Manila LRT Line 1
* Romania:
Bucharest Metro Line M2
* Serbia:
Belgrade Tram
* Sweden:
Stockholm Tram
* Taiwan:
Kaohsiung Tram
* Turkey: Antray(Antalya LRT)
* Turkey:
Istanbul Metro
* UK: CAF
DLR replacement programme (
Docklands Light Railway,
TfL)
* UK: New
West Midlands Metro vehicles
* UK:
Edinburgh Trams
* US:
Light Rail of Sacramento, California Class 200
* US:
Pittsburgh Light Rail, Pennsylvania Class 4300
* US:
Washington Metro,
5000-Series
* US:
METRORail, (
Houston, TX)
* US:
Kansas City Streetcar
* US:
Cincinnati Streetcar
The Connector is a streetcar system in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. The system opened to passengers on September 9, 2016. The streetcar operates on a loop from The Banks, Great American Ball Park, and Smale Riverfront Park through Downto ...
* US:
MBTA Green Line Type 9 LRV and Type 10 (on order - delivery starting 2027)
* US:
MTA Maryland Purple Line (On order)
* Venezuela:
Caracas Metro
See also
*
Karlos Arguiñano, a former worker at CAF who later became famous as a TV chef.
*
Variable gauge axles
A variable gauge system allows railway vehicles in a train to travel across a break of gauge between two railway networks with different track gauges.
For through operation, a train must be equipped with special bogies holding variable gauge wh ...
*
List of rolling stock manufacturers
Throughout railroad history, many manufacturing companies have come and gone. This is a list of companies that manufactured railroad cars and other rolling stock. Most of these companies built both passenger and freight equipment and no distincti ...
References
External links
Official website
{{Authority control
Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1917
Companies listed on the Madrid Stock Exchange
Basque companies
Locomotive manufacturers of Spain
Rolling stock manufacturers of Spain
Spanish brands
Rail infrastructure manufacturers
Conservative Party (UK) donors
Spanish companies established in 1917
Gipuzkoa