Austria: The world’s leading maker of track maintenance machinery has posted record revenue of €731 mln for 2025, up 56% on 2024. New order intake came in at around €1 bln, pushing the Austrian company’s order backlog past €1.6 bln, while operating profit reached €41.4 mln — a rise of 250%.
The figures confirm a recovery that began in 2024. For several years before that, Plasser & Theurer had been running at a loss, cutting jobs and trimming costs, reporting a €50 mln loss for 2022 and €140 mln for 2023. Speaking to IRJ, company representatives put this down to the Covid-19 pandemic, global supply-chain problems, the conflict in Ukraine and a sharp rise in costs. They also pointed to tighter EU certification rules, internal difficulties in organising workflows and a tough international competitive environment.
A run of major contracts underpinned the 2025 surge. A large order from Egypt’s ENR has been running since 2024, and 2025 brought further significant deals with Germany’s Deutsche Bahn and Spitzke, Croatia’s HŽ Infrastruktura, Sweden’s Trafikverket and others.
In its press release, the company stresses that it achieved these results despite a still-difficult economic and geopolitical climate, and while up against rivals that have lower production costs and substantial state subsidies. “High energy and labour costs, along with a heavy regulatory burden, are taking their toll,” Plasser & Theurer says, adding that decisions on where to locate production are increasingly shaped by competitive energy prices, lighter bureaucracy and sustained investment in innovation and infrastructure.
Most of the company’s track machinery is currently built at its production complex in Linz, Austria, which is now being expanded; capacity in the US was increased earlier. Exports make up 93% of deliveries, with the machines going mainly to Germany, the US, the UK, India and Japan.
