Stadler announced on February 16 that it had signed contracts worth up to £700m with Merseytravel, covering the supply and maintenance of 52 four-car EMUs for the Merseyrail network. With the first EMU to arrive for testing 'in the middle of 2019', the entire fleet will be in service by 2021, said Stadler. According to Merseytravel, the legal challenge to the contract award from Bombardier (RBI 527 p8) is ongoing, but the latter had agreed to lift the 'automatic stay' which had prevented Merseytravel, Mer- seyrail and Stadler from signing the contracts. 'We remain fully confident in the integrity of our procurement process and, therefore, that we can robustly defend the challenge', a Merseytravel spokesperson told RBI.
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