Rail supplier news from ARI, Railserve, Hub Group, HNTB and RailPros (June 9)

American Railcar Industries Inc. (ARI) announced that it has begun managing its rail-car leasing business in-house. The news follows the sale of its former lease fleet manager, American Railcar Leasing LLC, to SMBC Rail Services LLC. ARI now will be able to serve customers with a "complete suite of products and services," company officials said in a press release. The firm's offerings include ARI-built rail cars for direct sale and lease, in-house lease fleet management, rail-car and industrial components and rail-car repair services. To prepare for the endeavor, ARI added staff to internally manage its own lease fleet and increased sales and marketing staff. Additionally, the company hired John O'Bryan as chief commercial officer to lead the team.

Railserve's first Tier 4-compliant Dual Leaf® gen-set locomotive has been placed into service for an undisclosed customer. The unit is designed to cut particulate emissions by 99 percent and nitrous oxide emissions by 92 percent, company officials said in a press release. The locomotive is expected to improve fuel economy because it operates at lower revolutions per minute in low-notch and idle phases, which are the typical settings for most switching operations. Railserve produces the Dual Leaf units at a manufacturing facility in Longview, Texas.

Hub Group Inc. has announced an agreement to acquire trucking company Estenson Logistics LLC for $306 million. The transaction is expected to close July 1, subject to customary closing conditions and required approvals. Following the closing of the deal, the business will be named Hub Group Dedicated Services and will operate as part of Hub Group Trucking. With the addition of Estenson, Hub Group will be able to offer a "more complete" multimodal solution, including intermodal, truck brokerage, logistics and dedicated trucking, company officials said in a press release.

HNTB Corp. has added Michael Bogonovich and Michael Haverstick to the company's positive train control (PTC) team. Bogonovich is a senior systems project engineer with more than three decades of experience delivering transportation projects. He specializes in the design, integration, manufacture, commissioning, operations and maintenance of transit-rail vehicles, control and security systems, and electrical systems for facilities. He previously worked as a program manager for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and as a senior rail systems engineer for the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation. Haverstick is a PTC systems project engineer with more than 26 years of experience in transit and rail communication systems. His experience includes communication system design, specification development, project management, communication system installations and management of large-scale integrated communications systems. Prior to joining HNTB, he worked as a communication system project and technical lead for the the Eagle P3 commuter-rail project in Denver.

RailPros has hired Doug Sawyer as vice president of its Southern California operations. He's responsible for client management and project oversight in the region. Before joining RailPros, Sawyer was a senior vice president and area manager for large firms, including Parsons Brinckerhoff. He has nearly four decades of office leadership, business development and project management experience.