This week’s news from the global railway supply chain.
EUCO Rail has opened a centre for the heavy maintenance of bogies, wheelsets and other vehicle components at Gersthofen near Augsburg in Germany. It said there is significantly increasing demand for efficient and independent maintenance capabilities. ‘Many operators don’t have their own facilities for heavy maintenance’, said President & CEO Jörg Ernst. ‘With Gersthofen, we’re creating a solution that’s flexible, manufacturer-independent and state-of-the-art, from trams to locomotives.’
Acoustic infrastructure monitoring technology specialist Sensonic and Indian UAV company Skylark Drones have partnered to provide improved monitoring and response to incidents on railways. ‘Sensonic is proud to combine our cutting-edge fibre optic sensing technology with Skylark’s ability to respond rapidly and autonomously via drones’, said Sensonic CEO said Ashish Upadhyay. ‘By combining distributed acoustic sensing and advanced Bharat series of drones, we’re enabling real-time detection and monitoring capabilities along the rail corridor.’
The Knorr-Bremse supervisory board has extended Dr Nicolas Lange’s contract as a member of the Executive Board for a further five years from October 2026. Lange was appointed to the executive board in October 2023 and has global responsibility for the Rail Vehicle Systems division.
Škoda Group has agreed to lease a depot from Bulgarian company TTL which it will use to maintain 25 EMUs ordered by the Ministry of Transport & Communications in a September 2024 deal which includes 15 years of maintenance.
Scott Driggers succeeded Jeff Chick as CEO of Cathcart Rail on October, having joined as Chief Operating Officer in June. Driggers previously held roles at A Stucki, Appalachian Railcar Services and Cathcart Rail. Cathcart Rail is to unveil a new brand identity shortly.
Eurotunnel is to deploy RAILwAI’s predictive maintenance technology on its network.
Arup has joined the Executive Committee of the US High Speed Rail Association. ‘Arup brings decades of extensive global rail civil engineering experience to our large group of experts’, said USHSR President Andy Kunz.