Vossloh AG announced on November 30 that it had successfully completed the acquisition of Australian concrete sleeper manufacturer Austrak Pty Ltd from Laing O'Rourke through its Vossloh Australia subsidiary. In future, Austrak will form part of Vossloh’s Tie Technologies business unit, within the Core Components division.
Releasing its annual results for 2017-18 on December 6, Voith Group reported a slight increase in business at the Mobility division of Voith Turbo. However, ‘new business for rail applications remained weak’, with the company warning that ‘the rail market continued to be characterised by delays in the awarding of projects and very intense competition on account of excess capacities on the part of rail vehicle manufacturers’. However, Voith anticipates that a new joint venture with CRRC Corp ‘will decisively strengthen our business in the important Chinese rail market’.
Currently providing acoustic, monitoring and environmental services for the construction of High Speed 2, SRL Technical Services Ltd has started the construction of a new acoustic laboratory and additional testing suites for completion by the end of 2019.
Turkey and Azerbaijan have agreed to establish a joint venture to build freight wagons for use on the Baku – Tbilisi – Kars railway, Turkish transport minister Mehmet Cahit Turhan announced on December 5, following a meeting with ADY CEO Cavid Gurbanov in Baku. Manufacturing sites for the project have already been identified, Turhan added.
Epoxy and polyurethane resin manufacturer SikaAxson has been renamed Sika Advanced Resins, marking the business unit’s closer integration into the Sika Group, three years after its acquisition by the specialty chemicals group.
The Benelux subsidiary of ventilation drives manufacturer Ziehl-Abegg has opened a new facility at Nieuwkuijk in the Netherlands to accommodate increasing business in the region.