Recent deals and tenders in the track machine market.
Romania — The country’s General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations has ordered a €73 mln medical train. Rolling stock builder Electroputere VFU and medical equipment and special vehicle producer Deltamed SRL won the contract through a tender, funded under the EU’s Security Action for Europe defence programme. The train will consist of two hybrid (overhead line/diesel) locomotives and 20 specialised carriages, housing an intensive care unit for 24 patients, three operating theatres, a 210-bed hospital ward, a pharmacy, a laboratory, a kitchen, and living and crew accommodation. It is designed for deployment in natural disasters, industrial accidents and military conflict.
Slovenia and Croatia — Plasser & Theurer, Geismar and Duro Dakovic are supplying €38 mln worth of track machinery to the two countries. Slovenian infrastructure manager SŽ-infrastruktura has ordered two tamping machines and a ballast regulator from Plasser & Theurer for €23.1 mln following a tender. Croatia’s HŽ Infrastruktura has bought a heavy-duty rail maintenance vehicle from the Austrian manufacturer for €7.3 mln, a track-laying crane and sleeper-changing machine from Geismar for €6.7 mln, and a ballast hopper wagon from Duro Dakovic for €1.3 mln.
Sweden —The leasing company RB Solutions has ordered four track machines from Plasser & Theurer: three BallastMaster 410 ballast regulators and one Unimat 08-4×4/4S tamping, lining and levelling machine, due for delivery in 2027. The machines will operate in Sweden and Norway. RB Solutions has bought track machinery from the Austrian manufacturer before.
Portugal — Lisbon Metro has a new rail grinding machine from Harsco Rail. The four-axle RGH10C, named Esmeralda, carries track condition monitoring systems and cost almost €8 mln. The unit replaces a machine that had been in service since 1976 and was ordered back in 2021 — the US manufacturer ran two and a half years late on delivery.
Tamping machine from Plasser & Theurer for Senegal. Source: Assane SOW
Senegal — Plasser & Theurer has shipped a tamping machine to the country, where the two-axle unit will maintain the TER suburban railway serving the Dakar metropolitan area. The buyer is line operator SETER, a subsidiary of French national operator SNCF, with the purchase funded by the Senegalese government.
Low-floor platform wagon for transporting tracked vehicles from Windhoff. Source: Schulze Modellbau
Germany — DB InfraGO has ordered 12 low-floor flatcars for transporting tracked vehicles from Windhoff, awarding the contract directly without a tender. Windhoff says it is the only manufacturer producing rolling stock with a loading height of 60 cm above rail level.
