Rail supplier news from Mitsubishi, Alstom, Koppers, Auto Truck and LTK (Feb. 23)

Qatar Railways Co. has tentatively accepted a plan to construct the country's first metro system. Qatar Rail sent a letter of conditional acceptance to a five-member consortium comprised of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Corp., Hitachi, Kinkisharyo and Thales. The project is scheduled for completion by October 2019.

Alstom will supply Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) with four Pendolino high-speed trains under a contract worth $131 million. The trains are slated to run various routes from Milan.

Koppers Railroad Products and Services promoted Tom Loadman to senior vice president of its railroad products and services business unit in North America. Named VP and general manager in 1995, Loadman has worked at Koppers since 1979.

Auto Truck Group has named Brian Black national account manager. With previous managerial experience at TMX Finance, Manheim, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Black has worked in the auto industry for 20 years.

LTK Engineering Services has announced the following vice president appointments: Julie Green, revenue systems and technology; Bill Lipfert, rail operations planning and simulation; Chris Reitter, systems engineering; Ken Hesser, vehicle mechanical engineering; and Jim Dietz, vehicle electrical engineering. As a result of a geographical reorganization plan, the firm also announced the following VP appointments: Chris Pacher, New England and eastern Canada; Ray Carini, middle Atlantic; Ernie Chance, south Atlantic; Steve Apanian, north central region; Lloyd Mack, northwest region; Mike Tagaras, south central region. Mike Ghobrial and Dave Diaz also were promoted to serve as regional managers of the southern New England and northern New Jersey regions, respectively. Additionally, Diaz will serve as VP of special projects as part of his promotion, and Rick Landell was promoted to senior VP of the northeast region.