RSL acquires Transmontanas

On 28 July 2025, Softronic announced that it had concluded an order with Rolling Stock Lease for two Transmontana locomotives. This is the first time that the Slovak pool will acquire locomotives other than Vectrons, the leasing of which to state-owned operators ČD, ČD Cargo, ZSSK and ZSSK CARGO and, moreover, to the Budamar group is its core activity.

The Class 480 Transmontanas for RSL should be delivered in April and May 2026. These six-axle locomotives are designed to operate at 15 kV 16.7 Hz and 25 kV 50 Hz and are approved for operation in Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia and Slovakia (and other machines from a separate order are operated in Sweden by Green Cargo).

More precisely, in Slovakia, Transmontanas were initially allowed to operate only from the state border point to Štúrovo station in 2015, and since 2018 on almost all lines with a 25 kV 50 Hz voltage, except for the Zvolen os. st. - Banská Bystrica section. In sections with track circuits using a 75 Hz frequency, operation is allowed only with the ICSA-LE-EU compensation (filtering) device switched on. Transmontanas for RSL will not be equipped with the ETCS OBU.

However, in February 2025, Softronic announced that it had successfully completed tests of these locomotives with the ETCS OBU from Hitachi Rail in Romania, Hungary and Slovakia.