Germany’s Siemens AG and France’s Alstom SA are discussing a merger to create a European rail transportation manufacturing conglomerate to counter growing competition from China, according to a report in the Sept. 23, 2017 Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, Siemens continues to engage in talks with Canada’s Bombardier, Inc. about merging their railway businesses.
Siemens has named Marc Buncher President of Siemens Mobility Division in the U.S. and Canada. He will be based out of Siemens Mobility headquarters in New York, N.Y.
Siemens on Aug. 9 inaugurated its new Locomotive Service facility in New Castle, Del., that will operate as the company’s digital service, supply chain and technical field training hub in the region.
In the wake of Bombardier Transportation’s ongoing problems with light rail vehicles it’s building for various Ontario LRT projects, the purported combination of the railway businesses of Siemens and Bombardier appears to have taken on an interesting twist. This folllows the filing of an official protest letter by Siemens Canada with Ontario’s Transportation Minister over Metrolinx’s awarding of a single-source LRV contract to Alstom.
Unnamed sources inside Bombardier and Siemens AG have told the Montreal Gazette that the two companies are considering various joint ventures as part of the planned merger of their respective railway divisions.
European Locomotive Leasing, a provider of full-service leasing of electric locomotives, has ordered an additional eight Vectron locomotives from Siemens.
Siemens this week said it completed the 100th locomotive at its Sacramento, Calif. rail manufacturing hub.
Sound Transit is expanding its partnership with Siemens with an order for 30 additional light rail vehicles for the regional transit system serving Seattle and the central Puget Sound area.
Siemens’ U.S. unit has launched Digital Rail Services, a new business that will use intelligent sensors and advanced software platforms to put intelligence behind billions of data points created on the country’s rail systems.
Supplier consolidations are nothing new in the global railway industry. The latest purported combination has German technology and engineering colossus Siemens AG acquiring Canadian firm Bombardier’s Transportation division, according to a report published Tuesday, April 11, in Toronto’s Globe and Mail. Bombardier shares jumped nearly 7% on the Toronto Stock Exchange after Bloomberg News, citing anonymous sources, originally broke the story.