Central Japan Railway subsidiary Nippon Sharyo is to close its US rolling stock plant in Rochelle, Illinois, at the end of August. The plant opened in July 2012 to serve the North American market, but ran into problems with Buy America requirements for components, the failure of a subsupplier and the reassignment to Siemens of a multi-state contract for the supply of 120 coaches after a prototype bodyshell suffered a structural failure during testing.
On August 13 India’s Minister for Railways Piyush Goyal and Chairman of the Railway Board Ashwani Lohani participated in an India-USA round table discussion with the US ambassador, delegates from 13 US railway construction, maintenance and IT companies and the US Trade Development Agency. Goyal emphasised the importance of the Make-in-India programme, and said the Railway Board would examine the companies’ concerns about matters including local certification and tax requirements.
On August 14 US companies Railmark Rail Services and Vallabhaneni Steel Co announced the formation of a joint venture to manufacture and market cast iron, stainless steel, aluminium, copper and manganese castings for track and rolling stock applications. VSC will initially supply castings from its Lanam Foundry in New Martinsville, West Virginia, and is finalising an additional site in west Africa for international sales.
Brisbane-based ATEC Rail Group has agreed to acquire 100% of the issued share capital of Global Infrastructure Group, which provides rail infrastructure design and build and telecoms network maintenance services in the UK, Ireland and Australia. The acquisition is expected to complete by August 31.
Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed decree No 1633-R allocating 2·1bn roubles of government funding to subsidise the manufacturing of passenger rolling stock. This is expected to enable the production of up to 1 000 new coaches by 2022.
UK ticketing product supplier Paragon ID has secured ISO 27001 accreditation for its information security management systems.
Bombardier Transportation has appointed Paul Brown as Managing Director of its operations in Australia, succeeding Andrew Dudgeon, who has decided to pursue other career opportunities outside of the business.
