Global Rail Trust Acquires Advanced Rail Management to Expand Footprint into North America
Acquisition announced at the Annual Wheel Rail Interaction (WRI) Conference in Vancouver, Canada, pairs best-in-class rail infrastructure knowledge and consulting expertise to benefit infrastructure and rail operators across Europe, Canada, the U.S. and beyond
At WRI 2022 in Vancouver, Global Rail Trust and its companies demonstrate their breadth and depth of capabilities to drive infrastructure innovation through deep rail knowledge management
Vancouver, Canada, June 21st, 2022 – Today at the 27th Annual Wheel Rail Interaction (WRI) Conference in Vancouver, Canada, Global Rail Trust (GRT) with offices in Austria, Germany and Spain announced the acquisition of Advanced Rail Management Corp. (ARM), based in the United States and Canada.
GRT provides highly specialised knowledge and consulting services to drive innovation for local, regional and global rail and mobility infrastructure providers. By curating, pooling and transferring unique knowledge, the Trust and its incorporated companies, jointly with original equipment manufacturers, suppliers, construction companies and infrastructure operators, secures and provides relevant expertise for future generations.
ARM has been a leader in providing turnkey services to passenger and freight systems relating to rail and wheel maintenance and optimisation in the U.S. and Canada since 1990. ARM combines high-level understanding of wheel-rail interaction with practical, hands-on field experience to provide comprehensive consulting engineering and on-site contracting support on many of the major rail transit systems across North America.
Combined rail knowledge driving innovation
“This acquisition pairs the cutting-edge capabilities of two competent partners for the benefit of infrastructure managers and rail operators in Europe, North America and beyond,” said Harald Eller, CEO of Global Rail Trust. “We are delighted to add ARM’s knowledge, footprint and North American network to our European expertise. Together, our growing team will fuel rail infrastructure innovation to help strengthen safety, efficiency and capacity for customers.”
“The ARM team is thrilled to become part of a global group today,” said Gordon Bachinsky, CEO of Advanced Rail Management Corp. “For over 30 years, we’ve been leading efforts to assess wheel and rail conditions, design plans to optimise wheel-rail interaction and oversee programs to correct and maintain wheel and rail surface conditions on the major rail transit systems in the U.S. and Canada. Our joining the GRT group means that we will be able to expand our solutions to other markets, and in turn facilitate the entry of GRT’s expertise into the North American market.”
The contract to enter the acquisition by Global Rail North America, the North American subsidiary of GRT, was signed in Vancouver, Canada, on June 20th, 2022. Over the coming years, strong emphasis will be placed on growing the North America team and operations by the GRT group, which aims to become the Americas’ go-to expert in wheel-rail and superstructure maintenance and a key partner to railway and transit systems. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
A new railway infrastructure Knowledge Broker
At WRI in Vancouver, the joint ARM/GRT team will showcase its companies’ integrated capabilities, services and products including data management, digitalisation, inspection, construction, maintenance, operation as well as essential knowledge transfer, education and training of rail infrastructure staff.
“We strive to be a Knowledge Broker for all relevant aspects of rail infrastructure,” Eller says. “GRT and its companies are able to connect infrastructure managers, suppliers and other stakeholders from across the global ecosystem while providing critical knowledge, training, consulting, maintenance and, if needed, operations services.”
The GRT Group of companies:
- Global Rail Academy (GRA) – www.globalrailacademy.com/en/start — a global network of expert trainers to develop and certify your staff and their capabilities, from onboarding to track geometry, operating machinery, tamping and other special courses to safety management
- Global Rail Consulting (GRC) — www.globalrailconsulting.com/en/start — an expert, global railway superstructure consultant and reliable knowledge partner to boost product development, ensure growth and optimise railway networks and organisations
- Global Rail Media (GRM) — www.globalrailmedia.com/en/start — a global knowledge-broker of railway expertise to enable stakeholders, providing convenient media and publishing services in international rail and closing the generational knowledge gap by documenting a century’s worth of railway knowledge for new hires and experts alike
- Advanced Rail Management (ARM) — www.arm-corp.com – a contract services provider offering consulting engineering and field services in support of optimising wheel-rail and vehicle-track interaction to improve safety and ride quality as well as reducing the overall costs of rail and wheel maintenance by increasing the life-cycle of assets
Coming soon:
- Global Rail Engineering (GRE) — designing and developing tailormade software and hardware solutions for rail data management, blended training activities and high-tech solutions for the rail market including support for certification of rail maintenance machines, technologies and staff
- Global Rail Recruiting (GRR) — a global recruiting and training network focused on the needs of railway infrastructure providers to upskill their workforce with new technologies, machine operating skills, data collection and management, and a lot more
“At Global Rail Trust, we passionately care about the future of global railway systems,” Eller said. “That’s why our next expansion step will include novel recruiting and engineering services, to help our partners overcome those common blockers and achieve rapid progress.”
With more than 30 % of the sector’s workforce expected to retire over the next five years, the industry is facing a major knowledge drain. “Rail is the epitome of autonomous, connected, electric, shared and sustainable mobility,” Eller stated. “Our goal is to bridge the pending talent gap and to ensure that relevant knowledge is contained, enhanced with latest insights and technologies and shared with new generations of rail engineers – so that jointly we can shape the future of mobility.”
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