Railjets to run with HÜBNER gangways in future

On 25 May 2023 HÜBNER announced that it will refurbish 680 gangway systems in the coming five years for the ÖBB in the railjet fleet. This until now has been using gangway systems from a market competitor (Ultimate). HÜBNER further announced that starting in 2023, it will each year modernize 136 railjet gangway systems under its refurbishment concept - all in a resource-saving manner.

To begin with, the frames of the gangways will be removed and reused whenever possible. Then all the individual parts of the gangway systems will be checked and replaced as required on the basis of wear. In all cases, the fabric components of the gangway systems will need to be replaced as these elements have generally reached the end of their maximum life cycle after 15 years. 

Christoph Steinbach, Head of Sales in After Sales & Service, explains: “The core of our refurbishment approach is to replace only what is really necessary - and to reuse as many components as possible. This makes HÜBNER refurbishments as efficient as possible for our customers. Moreover, we have developed a technical solution for the automatic removal of water and moisture in the space between the inner and outer bellows. With this new system that has not existed before, it’s possible to remove condensation from the gangways without affecting the their pressure tightness. HÜBNER has applied for a patent for this new technical solution.“

This refurbishment is related to the ÖBB plans to make from early 2024 to late 2028 an upgrade for the technical modernisation of the present railjets as well as for the alignment of the interior design of the first railjet generation with the second generation, which is now being built by Siemens.

Due to some ambiguities, we asked HÜBNER:
1) On what day and month the ÖBB contract was awarded?
2) In which month your work will start? And in which month year the work will finnish?
3) Where the refurbishment will be carried out?
4) Until now ÖBB has 60 seven-car railjets in service. This means 60 x 13 = 780 inter-car gangways (two gangways on each car + one gangway on the driving trailers). Where did the number 680 come from?
5) The ČD railjets (seven 7-car units) will be dealt, too?
6) How are the gangway systems of Ultimate and Hübner compatible? In other words, how HÜBNER can replace some components in the gangways of another producer? The same question emerges with your new water and moisture removal system.

HÜBNER answered us only: „The plan is to finish the refurbishment of the ÖBB Railjet gangway systems in 2028. The work will be done in the plant at our headquarters in Kassel.“ 

When we asked for answers to the remaining questions, HÜBNER said: „Please understand that we do not provide any further information beyond the answer given.“