Company News Sep 19, 2006 10:00 AM
ThyssenKrupp GfT Gleistechnik expands successful systems business on a global scale
With sales of presently over EUR300 million and 190 employees, the company has shown strong and repeated growth over the past three years and invested in its future. For the purpose of widening the services spectrum, the subsidiary ThyssenKrupp Langschienen GmbH was founded in Königsborn near Magdeburg. Presently, a rail welding plant and a facility for reconditioning old rails including reprofiling are being set up. With this measure, ThyssenKrupp GfT Gleistechnik is creating 18 new jobs in Saxony-Anhalt. And the leap into the United States is the next step. Before the end of the year, a subsidiary with a local supplier will be opened in the USA.
"Like no other we are in a position to offer the international private railroad companies and (sub)urban rail operators a complete service package, from manufacture to on-site delivery," explains General Manager Harald Bogedein. "As announced, we have further extended our capabilities since the previous InnoTrans!" This also applies to the growing commitment to the slab-track sector (stake in SST in Naumburg), Y-steel sleepers (1,000 km laid), vibration-dampened trackage (patents) as well as XAR materials." Moreover, the company will invest more strongly in preventive track maintenance," focusing on mobile grinding and milling systems. The wagon equipment unit has also progressed (wheelsets, wheels, wheelset shafts for locomotives, passenger and freight cars).
Presently, Bogedein sees a boom in the global railroad market. "Almost everywhere, funds for new infrastructural projects are being made available. Apart from Asia, Central & Eastern Europe, the USA, North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, its Australia and India that are of high interest. The modernization of existing short-, long-distance and industrial railroad networks is of top priority for many nations." On the one hand, he sees the reasons for this development in the "urgently required decongestion of road and highway traffic," on the other in more severe rail wear due to today's "higher speeds negotiated by the state-run trains."
The switches are pointing to success-selected reference projects
Deutsche Bahn AG
Annual delivery of up to 120,000 tonnes of rails, 80,000 units of Y-steel sleepers.
ICE high-speed line Ingolstadt-Munich: new section: 70 kilometers of double trackage, just-in-time delivery of rails and switches; off-loading, laying, welding including commissioning documentation.
Lehrter railroad station: delivery of 2,500 tonnes of rails, 100 switches and various permanent-way materials for the new central station in Berlin
LRT Jerusalem (Israel)
Delivery of 3,000 tonnes of material for a modern urban railway. Pilot project for track-bound local traffic. Ten kilometers of double trackage with rails of ultramodern grooved design. The project commenced at the start of 2006. Commissioning is planned for 2008.
Belgian state railroad
Skeleton contract (2 years) for delivering 12,000 tonnes annually: presently, the widely used rail profile 60 E1 is being shipped out. For high-speed routes which are being built as part of the European high-speed network. Including the lines Aachen - Liège - Brussels as well as Amsterdam - Antwerp - Brussels, clearly reducing travel times from Germany and the Netherlands to Brussels/Paris/London.
Algerian railroad SNTF
Comprehensive rail revamps and new projects by upgrading and extending the long-distance network with modern infrastructure facilities. In the past months, more than 10,000 tonnes of rail with the UIC 54 profile, many switches and further permanent-way materials have been delivered.
Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation, Taiwan
Delivery of 10,000 tonnes of rail for Metro Taipei, link to the CKS airport. Presently, Metro Taipei comprises a railroad network of 77 kilometers, an extension to 100 kilometers is planned. (Off)loading materials on site with special rail tongs.
Tunis transit authority (Tunisia)
Extension and modernization of the urban railroad Métro Léger de Tunis, delivery of all the permanent-way materials (grooved rails, switches, sleepers, fasteners) for seven kilometers of double trackage; southward extension direction El Mourouj, materials for modernizing and maintenance of trackage for modern low-floor railcars.