Bernard Peille, managing director, Alstom South Africa: “Alstom is positioning itself on the opening of the rail freight market”

Bernard Peille has been managing director of Alstom South Africa as well as the Southern Cone since 15 July 2020 and previously headed Alstom’s activities in Kazakhstan. The group signed in 2014 with Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) to supply 600 passenger trains based on the X’trapolis platform, known as EMU (self-propelled trains), between 2015 and 2025, i.e. 3,600 cars to be delivered. This is the largest mega-contract in the group’s history and will run until 2030. With Bombardier, acquired at the beginning of 2021, Alstom has also won a major contract in South Africa with the public operator Transnet for electric freight locomotives of the Traxx model, used in particular for ore or coal, in collaboration with Transnet Engineering, which is responsible for their assembly. In mid-September, Alstom acquired TMH Africa, a subsidiary of the Russian group Transmashholding, in which Alstom holds 20%.