Rail supplier news from PowerRail, Amsted Rail and Masabi (March 4)

PowerRail has purchased a new 200,000-square-foot facility in Exeter, Pennsylvania, and will move its operations there over the next several months. The after-market locomotive parts and components distributor has been operating in Duryea, Pennsylvania, for nearly 16 years. The new site will house corporate offices, a distribution center, manufacturing, PowerRail Industries and Avoca Rail Products. The additional warehouse space and receiving and shipping docks will help PowerRail provide on-time delivery to customers around the globe, company officials said in a press release.

Amsted Rail has received Microsoft's Use-Case of the Year recognition for manufacturing. Amsted Rail earned recognition for its successful use of HoloLens 2, Microsoft's mixed reality technology. During the height of the pandemic, an Amsted Rail customer faced an issue that halted assembly. Under normal circumstances, a service engineer would travel to provide onsite customer service. With international borders shut down and health and safety concerns, Amsted Rail shipped a HoloLens 2 kit to its customer instead. “The use of Microsoft's HoloLens 2 technology enabled us to get our customer's assembly up and running in a timely manner while reducing travel expenses and health and safety risks of our employees and customers," said Mike McDonnell, Amsted Rail’s chief innovation officer, in a press release.

Masabi announced a strategic growth investment from Accel-KKR, a technology-focused private equity firm with over $11 billion in capital commitments. Existing investors Shell and Smedvig Capital also participated in the round. The investment will accelerate Masabi’s product development and add new deployments of Justride in North and South America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.