New Stadler Pankow Facility

On 6 July 2021, Stadler opened a new hall in Berlin-Pankow, expanding its existing works there. The new facility covers an area of 24,000 m² and includes an assembly hall together with a test room (16,000 m² in total), office space and a company‘s own restaurant. The decision to make this 70 million EUR investment was made in 2019, and in less than 30 months the new building was planned and constructed, which includes a connection to the existing railway siding.

In coming weeks, all premises will be commissioned and the relocation of employees will begin, with production scheduled to start in autumn 2021. This will be followed by the second phase of construction by the end of 2024, namely the building of the logistics centre, for which further groundwork and project activities are required. The whole Stadler’s expansion project was financially supported by the Federal State of Berlin and supervised by Investitionsbank Berlin.

With the new facility, the Berlin works will reach a capacity of up to 500 finished vehicles annually (an average of two vehicles per day) and will enable Stadler Deutschland to handle existing and upcoming large orders. At present, for example, it is the Stadler/Siemens consortium's contract for 21 Class 483 two-car and 85 Class 484 four-car EMUs for S-Bahn Berlin (a total of 382 cars, 106 of which are manufactured by Stadler), which are to be delivered by the end of 2023. In addition, 55 FLIRT AKKU BEMUs will be produced in Pankow for the state of Schleswig-Holstein.

Between 2014 and 2020, a total of 54 four-car Type IK metro trains were built here for Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), which started regular in 2015. Subsequently the new Type J/JK metro trains will also be produced for the same customer, as Stadler was successful in winning the largest tender in the BVG history for up to 1,500 cars in March 2020; the framework contract already includes a firm order for 606 cars. The first trains should be available for test runs in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Peter Spuhler, Chairman of the Board of Management and Stadler Rail Group CEO, said: „Thanks to the good order situation, we can expand our Pankow works for the fourth time since 2001 and we are proud of this investment. Stadler Deutschland was founded in 2000, some ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, then as a joint venture with Adtranz. This traditional facility had only 197 employees and was thus saved from closure. In June 2001, Stadler took over 100 % of Stadler Pankow GmbH and has been growing continuously ever since, including the number of employees, which now stands at around 1,500 after twenty years.“