NORTH AMERICAN rolling stock supplier The Greenbrier Companies has launched a drive to break into the European freight wagon market. This follows the group’s purchase on March 9 of a majority stake in the Polish wagon builder Fabryka Wagonów Swidnica SA, which is to be relaunched this month as Wagony Swidnica (RG 4.98 p262).
Greenbrier Communications Director Bruce Harmon says the FWS production lines are able to turn out very high quality workmanship, but efficiency improvements will be required. There has been little investment in the plant since 1991, and a programme to modernise or replace the main equipment will get under way shortly. Some exchange of best practice with the Gunderson plant in the USA and Trenton Works in Canada is also envisaged, particularly in harnessing Greenbrier’s strong marketing focus.
Following the changes in Eastern Europe, FWS production had fallen from 4000 to around 1000 vehicles a year, with the main focus being on tank wagons where demand remained strong. Greenbrier expects production to continue at around 1000 per year during the transition phase.
Harmon says Greenbrier is looking to become ’a major supplier in the European wagon market, both east and west’. An early development will be to start production of swap bodies and possibly container wagons for the intermodal market, although FWS is unlikely to bid against established firms for actual container production. Modernisation and refurbishment of existing vehicles is seen as another potential market. Harmon suggests that the European railways could benefit from ’an injection of US freight technology and operating practices’, but this will clearly take time.
Emphasising the group’s aggressive expansion into the international marketplace, Greenbrier signed a joint venture agreement in May to build wagons at Bombardier’s ex-Concarril plant in Mexico. o
