USA: Lieutenant Governor of Iowa Kim Reynolds inaugurated Rail.One’s concrete sleeper factory in Clinton on April 29. The company has invested $22m in building the plant, which was completed in under 12 months and is expected to produce 600 000 sleepers a year for the North American market.
‘The plant in Clinton is one of the most modern production facilities in the concrete tie industry’, said Rail.One CEO Jochen Riepl. ‘Here in the USA, with our know-how we will set the standards for new technologies and for quality in the concrete tie industry.’
Rail.One now has 13 production sites in the USA, Germany, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey, South Korea and Hungary, with annual sales of $182m and total annual production capacity of 4·6 million plain line sleepers and 580 000 linear metres of turnout bearers. It has developed an HHS 36/6 heavy-duty sleeper meeting both American AREMA specifications as well as the European EN 13230 standard.
