The contract resigning follows a €35 million investment by Tata Steel in 2011 which allowed the Hayange mill to produce 108m lengths of rail that SNCF will use throughout France's standard and high-speed networks.

Gérard added: "This contract win has been made possible by our continued drive to be more customer focused. By working closely with SNCF, by learning from them and by developing the products and services they need, we have shown the benefits close working relationships like this can bring."

Jacques Rapoport, president of SNCF, said: "This contract provides visibility to our industrial partners. We wanted to develop this type of long-term contract for three reasons: to increase our rail capacity to cope with an unprecedented workload to renovate the existing network, to improve our manufacturing efficiency by providing additional scope for innovation and finally to challenge our processes to enable continuous improvement."

Hayange is one of the most technically advanced rail mills in the world, producing a broad range of products including world leading heat-treated grades designed to cope with high-traffic and heavy freight traffic.

As well as long length and heat-treated rail, Hayange will supply Sogenox® - an innovative type of rail which enables the train's location to be communicated through the track using electrical signals. Sogenox rail ensures those signals can be transmitted in even low traffic areas when normal rail can become oxidised which disrupts electrical connections.
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