Supplier Spotlight (November 2007)

M&A

• Standard Car Truck Co. (SCT) acquired ZefTek Inc., which provides load damage prevention and rail-car component wear prevention products to the rail industry. SCT provides freight-car truck designs, and markets stabilizer systems, rail-car trucks and locomotive components.
  
• Italy’s MER MEC SpA acquired ImageMap Inc., which supplies rail, track and wheel measurement systems to rail industries worldwide. ImageMap will become an operating subsidiary of the MER MEC Group, but continue to operate as a separate entity.

Freight-car forays

• The Greenbrier Cos. and GE Equipment Services, Rail Services forged an agreement under which Greenbrier will build 11,900 tank cars and covered hoppers for the lessor over an eight-year period. The pact, which marks Greenbrier’s entry into the North American tank-car manufacturing market, also calls for the builder to install GE’s VeriWise^™ RAIL fleet management system on the new cars.
  
• National Steel Car Ltd. broke ground on a $350 million freight-car production plant in Colbert County, Ala. To be completed in late 2008 or early 2009, the facility will produce about 10,000 cars annually.

Car components

• Miner Enterprises Inc. will supply Canadian Pacific Railway 5,600 AutoLOK^® II outlet gates for grain hoppers.
  
• A “key strategic customer” placed an order with Portec Rail Products Inc.’s Shipping Systems Division for 100 car sets of the WinChock^™ Uni-Level Securement System for TTX Co.’s new uni-level cars. The system can secure large rubber-tired vehicles, such as Class VIII tractors and buses, on rail cars.
  
• Midland Manufacturing expanded its valve remanufacturing program so customers can re-qualify tank-car valves and restore components to like-new condition.

Bombardier/Siemens

• A Bombardier Transportation/Siemens consortium received a $557 million order from the Netherlands Railways to provide 32 four-car and 32 six-car Sprinter electric multiple units.

Shop talk

• GATX Corp. agreed to provide The Greenbrier Cos. a long-term lease for a rail-car maintenance facility in Tierra Blanca, Mexico. Greenbrier division Gunderson Rail Services will operate the facility. Greenbrier also entered into a long-term maintenance service agreement with GATX under which Gunderson will repair and service freight cars for GATX and other customers in the country.

Powering up

• Railpower Technologies Corp. received an order from Union Pacific Railroad for four GenSet, RP-Series locomotives.
  
• European rolling-stock lessor Angel Trains placed a $316 million order with Bombardier Transportation for 60 TRAXX freight locomotives.
  
• The Volpe National Transportation Systems Center purchased two N-ViroMotive^™ GenSet locomotives from National Railway Equipment Co.

C&S

• Union Switch & Signal Inc. received a contract for Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s (SEPTA) Kay Interlocking Re-Signaling Project, which features a new five-track interlocking design and interfaces with the SEPTA West and Amtrak Zoo interlockings.
  
• San Diego’s North County Transit District installed Digital Concepts Inc.’s Digital Traffic Control^™ 6.2 system for the soon-to-be-operational SPRINTER line.
  
• 10East Corp. will provide its Railway Daily Operations Control System (RailDOCS^™) Mobile Business Platform to Canadian Pacific Railway to support preventative maintenance efforts and the signal department’s government compliance logistics.
  
• RailComm Inc. received contracts from Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, which will use the supplier’s Domain Operations Controller (DOC^®) train-control system as a Web-enabled Software-as-a-Service; and Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, to provide a DOC^® PC-based control platform to provide entrance-exit and stacked routing capabilities.

Inspection services

• ENSCO Inc. received contracts to provide rail-inspection services for Transit America Services Inc. and Brazil’s SuperVia Railway. For Transit America, which operates North County Transit District commuter service, ENSCO will conduct a track inspection survey on 120 track miles. SuperVia awarded ENSCO an initial contract to conduct a track-inspection survey on passenger-rail lines totaling 250 miles.

MOW equipment

• Harsco Track Technologies (HTT) obtained two orders totaling more than $12 million to supply rail grinders in Japan and Singapore. HTT will build two 10-stone grinders for the Japanese customer and one 16-stone model for the Singapore Land Transport Authority.