A thousand jobs for Matosinhos. Portugal returns to manufacturing trains, 25 years later

More than 28 million euros, 300 direct and 1,000 indirect jobs, three trains produced per month for CP in Guifões. Here’s what we know about new factory from French company Alstom with DST from Braga.

The new train factory Alstomin Matosinhos, in the district of Porto, built by DSTwill be ready in two years and will cost 28.6 million euros, officials from both companies said.

When the assembly plant is completed, Alstom says that around 300 direct jobs and around 1,000 indirect jobs related to the factory’s activity will be created, with the first train expected to roll off the assembly line in 2029, then following a rhythm of “three trains per month”.

Speaking to journalists at the end of the session to lay the first stone of the assembly plant, which was attended by the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, the Minister of Infrastructure, Miguel Pinto Luz, and the president of CP, Pedro Moreira, both the head of Alstom Portugal, David Torres, and the president of the construction company DST, José Teixeira, advanced the values.

At stake is an investment of 28.6 million euros in the construction of the complex attached to the CP – Comboios de Portugal workshops in Guifões (Matosinhos), which according to the Portuguese businessman will be ready in two years (a deadline that DST wants to bring forward) and will have “500 workers at the peak” of the construction work on the 20,000 square meter complex.

The CP Workshop Complex, opened in 1990, has been used mainly for fleet maintenance and carriage recovery, including Schindler, Sorefame and Arco material. The site also already houses works linked to the so-called Portuguese Train, as part of the TrainSolutions Portugal project, financed by the Recovery and Resilience Plan.

CP purchased 153 trains with 450 passengers for Cascais, Lisbon, Porto

“The trains will have three carriages with capacity for 450 passengers, step-free access, Wi-Fi connectivity and dedicated spaces for wheelchairs and bicycles”, according to the Ministry of Infrastructure.

The Alstom factory in Matosinhos, to be built as part of the purchase of 153 trains by CP, will manufacture 81 railcars for the suburban areas of Cascais, Lisbon and Porto, with the remaining 72 manufactured in Barcelona.

According to the amendment to the contract signed between CP, the French multinational Alstom and the Portuguese DST, which increased the number of orders from 117 trains to 153 (36 more) and brought forward delivery times, there will be an almost equal distribution of the units to be built.

With these changes, the value of the contract went from R$746 million to R$1,064 million, distributed between 2025 and 2031.

CP is also receiving 22 railcars for regional service ordered from Stadler.

The Government has already approved an expenditure of 584 million euros for CP to acquire up to 20 high-speed trains to run on the country’s future lines (Lisbon-Vigo and Lisbon-Madrid routes).

“Prepared for any railway project”

“Alstom chose Portugal not only for the country’s strategic position, but also for the talent of professionals in Portugal, also for the stability of the institutions, also for the solidity we saw in the investment plans and, therefore, for the confidence to make long-term investments”, said David Torres in his speech.

José Teixeira, during the ceremony, defended that his company’s thesis is that “not everything has to be in the hands of the State”.

“A large part of the responsibility is in our hands for having innovative, cosmopolitan and cultured companies fulfilling their social responsibility beyond what is regulated”, he said, and guaranteed that DST is prepared “to carry out any railway work, including the TGV”.

The president of CP, Pedro Moreira, highlighted that the new factory “symbolizes investment, trust and long-term vision in a sector that is essential for the sustainable mobility of the Portuguese and without which Portugal will never be able to achieve the greenhouse gas reduction targets to which it has committed”.

Portugal returns to manufacturing trains almost 25 years later

Portugal will, therefore, return to manufacturing trains, almost 25 years after the closure of the historic Sorefame, in Amadora, which for decades symbolized the national railway industrial capacity.

The company, whose full name was Sociedades Reunidas de Fabricações Metálicas, was born in the 1940s and began manufacturing equipment for dams, including Castelo de Bode and Belver. Later, it also produced metallic structures, equipment for the energy, chemical and petroleum industries, and components for large public works.

From the 1950s onwards, recalls , Sorefame began manufacturing rolling stock for the then CP — Caminhos de Ferro Portugueses. From its lines came locomotives, thermal and electric railcars, wagons, vans and wagons. The company also supplied the Lisbon Metropolitan, the Porto Metro, the Cascais Line and railway operators in Portuguese-speaking African countries.

Sorefame also participated in emblematic projects such as the 25 de Abril Bridge and Cahora Bassa, in Mozambique. In the 1990s, it came under the control of the Swiss company ABB and was linked to the production of Fertagus trains, the new Sintra Line trains and CP’s Alfa Pendulars. At the beginning of the 21st century, ABB sold its position to the Canadian Bombardier, which would close the Amadora factory in 2004.

The closure of Sorefame put an end to more than six decades of national production of railway material and left Portugal without the industrial capacity to manufacture locomotives and rolling stock. Among the company’s latest projects were trains for the Porto Metro and suburban electric trains for the North region. At the time, the closure was seen by several observers as the loss of a strategic industrial sector.