This comprises four milling machines and around 30 employees. The acquisition strengthens Vossloh’s rail and switch maintenance business and contributes to the Lifecycle Solutions division’s consistent expansion into a comprehensive maintenance provider.
Vossloh operates its milling business through its subsidiary Alpha Rail Team in Berlin, in which the acquired Strabag unit will be integrated. The transaction is expected to be completed in 2018.
Rail milling enables the efficient repair of deep rail defects while simultaneously reprofiling the railhead. Thereby not only noise emission is reduced and rail safety increased, but also the life of the tracks is significantly increased.
“When rails have been milled and are back in perfect condition, we build on this by offering the customer our worldwide unique preventive maintenance technology, the so-called High Speed Grinding. This allows minor damage to the track surface – unavoidable during the course of rail infrastructure use – to be eliminated before it can lead to new serious rail defects. This is the perfect combination for rail track maintenance since it increases the availability of the tracks and creates value for our customers,” Andreas Busemann, CEO of Vossloh said.
The Vossloh Group estimates that the milling business will gain importance in the future due to increased traffic and higher speeds. With this acquisition, Vossloh is positioning itself as a leading provider of rail milling in the European market. Both the purchase price and expected sales are in the low double-digit million range.
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