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More developments abound in the rail supply industry:

• A downturn in the rail-car market has caught up to FreightCar America Inc. The car builder announced plans to close its Johnstown, Pa., manufacturing facility, which employs 390. FreightCar America will not close its Johnstown administrative offices or production plants in Danville, Ill., and Roanoke, Va. "It is critical for us to take full advantage of our lower-cost manufacturing facilities in order to produce our rail cars with a competitive cost structure," said FreightCar America President and Chief Executive Officer Chris Ragot in a prepared statement.

• Railpower Technologies Corp., which produces environmentally friendly switchers, announced its shareholders voted in favor of a $35 million investment by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, a Canadian institutional investor.

• Harsco Corp. promoted Richard Wagner from assistant controller to vice president and controller and Gerald Vinci, from senior director of human resources and employment counsel to VP of human resources-Americas. Wagner succeeds Stephen Schnoor, who will become senior VP and chief financial officer on Jan. 1. Vinci will oversee the company's human resources policies and practices throughout North and South America.

• BNSF Railway Co. contracted RailComm Inc. to provide a wireless remote-control derail system at Cherokee Yard in Tulsa, Okla. The system includes a remote workstation networked to an existing Domain Operations Controller (DOC®) server platform. BNSF will use the system to control and/or monitor an existing power switch control application and new remote-control derail application from multiple locations.

• Bombardier Transportation obtained a $94 million contract from Electro-Motive Diesel Inc. (EMD) to assemble 145 SD70ACe locomotives. Bombardier will fabricate components and assemble locomotives at its Sahagun, Mexico, plant. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in mid-March 2008 and conclude at 2008's end.

• Environmental Lubricants Manufacturing Inc. (ELM) recently relocated to a Cedar Falls, Iowa, facility. In March, a fire heavily damaged the company's production plant in Plainfield, Iowa. ELM — which produces bio-based lubricants and greases, including the SoyTrak™ rail curve grease — also named Alan Burgess technical manager. Most recently the company's production manager, he has served ELM since its 2000 inception.

• Canadian National Railway Co. contracted Wi-Tronix® L.L.C. to provide a remote monitoring system for locomotives. CN will deploy the systems on all new EMD SD70M-2 and GE - Transportation ES44DC locomotives, including 85 to be delivered by year's end. Wi-Tronix will supply its Wi-Tracker™ designed to monitor onboard data and diesel usage to improve locomotive utilization and boost fuel savings.