Rail supplier news from Siemens, DBi, Wi-Tronix and Bombardier (Dec. 1)

Siemens USA Chief Executive Officer Eric Spiegel will leave his post at year's end, the company announced yesterday. During his tenure at the company, Spiegel helped grow Siemens' business and furthered its "reputation in the U.S. as a critical contributor to the country's economic, manufacturing and innovation engines," said Lisa Davis, who was tapped to serve as chair and CEO of Siemens Corp., effective Jan. 1, 2017. Meanwhile, Judith Marks was appointed CEO of Siemens USA, also effective Jan. 1.

DBi Services has acquired the assets of Mercier's Inc. central branch in South Point, Ohio, where it employs about 50 people. Mercier's services include on-track railroad vegetation management, right-of-way herbicide applications and mowing, stormwater management, bio-retention trenches, incident and emergency management and roadway/roadside traffic control. In January, DBi acquired and integrated the Mercier's Inc. branch in Harmans, Md. Acquisition of the Ohio location is an "excellent strategic fit" for DBi's growth objective and a complement to its existing services, DBi officials said in a press release.

Wi-Tronix has released Violet™, a real-time streaming event recorder. The device collects and preserves critical system data of an asset such as speed, GPS location and system health. The data is "crucial" in investigations to understand accidents, derailments and near-miss situations, Wi-Tronix officials said in a press release. Violet is designed to ensure preservation of a locomotive's data and eliminate the need to physically retrieve the device to view data. With the new technology, event recorder data of moving locomotives is displayed on a user's screen in real time.

Prince William (second from left) test drives a Bombardier train. Photo: Bombardier

Bombardier Transportation's manufacturing site in Derby, U.K., welcomed Prince William on his first official visit to the county of Derbyshire. The prince spent an hour at the site, where he met with employees and local officials, and test drove one of the new trains being delivered for Transport for London's Elizabeth line. Richard Hunter, managing director of Bombardier Transportation UK, hosted the visit. Bombardier's Derby site is the only one that both designs and manufactures trains in the United Kingdom. The company employs 1,650 people at the location.