Rail supplier updates from Alstom, NRE, Siemens, Railhead and First State Manufacturing (Oct. 5)

Alstom finalized its acquisition of Motala Train AB, a Swedish company focused on refurbishment, heavy maintenance and repair of passenger trains. Alstom now becomes the sole owner of the company, which employs 73 people. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Meanwhile, Alstom opened a new $16.82 million service facility in Braunschweig, Germany, for the maintenance of electric passenger trains and locomotives. The site's extension includes two additional maintenance workshops equipped with electrified tracks, a turning lathe and a train washing system.

NRE's NREX 2015 Genset locomotive became the first to be verified by the California Environmental Protection Agency as achieving U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Tier 4 emission standards. A letter from the California Air Resources Board (ARB) confirmed that ARB staff verified the locomotive at switch NOx and PM emission levels at or below 1.0 and 0.01 g/bhp-hr, respectively. The verification qualifies NRE locomotives for the Carl Moyer Emissions Grant Program, which provides locomotive grants of up to 85 percent of the total locomotive cost, as a trade-in transaction.

Siemens has opened its service center for locomotives near Munich, Germany. The center features a sheltered service hall where preventive and corrective maintenance can be carried out on locomotives. This development marks the first time that Siemens has coupled locomotive production and maintenance at a single location, company officials said in a news release.

The New Mexico Rail Runner is expanding its existing locomotive digital video recorder (LDVR) systems from four to eight channels and adding Railhead Corp.'s twin view camera. The 8-channel LDVR will enable the passenger railroad to add cameras as needed to coincide with the upcoming inward-facing camera mandate, while the twin view camera will provide two fields-of-view to assist in incident investigation, Railhead officials said in a news release.

First State Manufacturing received a five-year contract with Amtrak to provide textile support for the railroad's interior fleet renovation projects. Over the past two years, the company has worked closely with Amtrak to complete smaller orders. Financial details of the contract award were not disclosed.