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Bloomberg
China’s world-leading train maker CRRC has gained control of one-quarter of the European diesel-locomotive market in a single purchase costing less than 10 million euros.
The acquisition of the Vossloh AG business provides China Railway Rolling Stock Corp. with a major toehold in a region where rail travel is ousting cars and planes faster than anywhere else.
CRRC’s Zhuzhou Locomotive will take over a Vossloh factory in Kiel, Germany, that employs 500 people and has supplied 25% of the European diesel market over the past five years, according to research from SCI Verkehr.
Though a focus on traditional switcher locos used in freight yards has rendered the site unprofitable in a world of changing logistical flows and increasing hostility to carbon emissions, CRRC should have the financial and technological clout to oversee its transformation, SCI said.
CRRC became the No. 1 rolling-stock manufacturer through a merger of China’s northern and southern train makers in 2015, the same year that Vossloh sold its Spanish loco unit, a maker of more modern diesel trains for mainline operations, to Stadler Rail AG.