Siemens Transportation Systems is to provide the transit operator Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) with 24 substations for DC traction power supply. These substations will be equipped with Sitras thyristor controlled rectifiers (TCR) and ensure efficient traction power supply. The base contract has a value of 30 million U.S. dollars. There is also an option for the delivery of an additional 14 substations.

The substations and the Sitras thyristor controlled rectifiers will be used to supply traction power to the future DART Green Line route running from southeast to northwest Dallas. Delivery is scheduled to start in October 2008 and end by 2010.

Up to a certain current load, Sitras TCR are capable of keeping the supply voltage of the substation at a virtually constant level and thus increasing the degree of energy efficiency. When used in new traction power systems for DC railways, these thyristor controlled rectifiers allow the distances between substations to be increased.

After the Valley Metro in Phoenix, Arizona, DART is the second transit operator in the USA to choose Siemens substations equipped with Sitras TCR technology. In Europe, Sitras TCR are already being used by such operators as Kölner Verkehrsbetriebe in Cologne (Germany), Oslo Sporveier in Oslo (Norway) and Wiener Linien in Vienna (Austria).

Pictures relating to this press release may be found under:
http://www.siemens.com/ts-pictures/dallas 

Image library on the homepage of transit operator DART:
http://www.dart.org/newsroom/imagelibrary.asp