 | |
| Founded | 1889 [1] |
|---|---|
| Founder | Rudolf Windhoff |
| Parent | Georgsmarienhütte Holding GmbH (2002–present) [2] |
| Website | www.windhoff.com |
Windhoff is a German manufacturer of specialised railways rolling stock, and heavy industrial plant. The company was founded in 1889.
The company is well known for its CargoSprinter rail vehicle, and derivatives.
The company started out as the Rheiner Maschinenfabrik (Machine Factory of Rheine) in Rheine near Münster, Germany in 1889 manufacturing machines for the weaving industry and founded by Rudolf Windhoff. By 1901 the company was employing over 100 people. [3]
As similar control mechanisms were used for steam-driven automated weaving looms and for stream-driven railway traversers and turntables, Rudolf Windhoff also founded the Motoren- und Fahrzeugfabrik Gebr. Windhoff (Windhoff Brothers' Engine and Vehicle Factory). [3]
In 1913, these two private companies were combined to form the share-based Rheiner Maschinenfabrik Windhoff (Windhoff Machine Factory Rheine). This combined company suffered losses during the 1930s. Later, a bomb destroyed the manufacturing premises on 5 October 1944. [3] In 1957 the company stopped manufacturing normal locomotives and start to concentrate on tracking machines (ballast tampers).
The Windhoff company was first listed on the stock exchange in 1993. [3] On 19 December 2001, [4] the main company was declared bankrupt and the industrial plant and railway engineering divisions being taken over on 1 March 2002, [4] to become part of Georgsmarienhütte Holdings GmbH. [3] The Windhoff division, as Windhoff Bahn- und Anlagentechnik GmbH (Windhoff Railway- and Equipment Technology) continues to supply specialist railway vehicles and infrastructure with a team of around 250 people. [3] The company is an approved railway contractor for in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Norway. [5]
Windhoff manufactures specialised rail vehicles including the diesel freight multiple unit the CargoSprinter, and the Windhoff MPV, used for infrastructure and service trains, as well as electric and diesel shunting machines, shunting locomotives, and stationary shunting equipment. The company also manufactures a wide variety of rail service equipment including lifting equipment, traversers and turntables and equipment for wheelset maintenance including wheel and bogie drop machines, and wheelset and bogie measuring equipment. [6]
Windhoff has a contract to supply Network Rail with a factory train which will be used by Amey plc in the Great Western electrification project. [7]
The company also manufactures equipment for heavy industrial plants, including steel-works equipment such as ladle transporters and tippers, torpedo wagons (in association with IAG-MAGNUM), and machinery for steel coil handling. [8]
A bogie is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transport. A bogie may remain normally attached or be quickly detachable ; it may contain a suspension within it, or be solid and in turn be suspended ; it may be mounted on a swivel, as traditionally on a railway carriage or locomotive, additionally jointed and sprung, or held in place by other means.
The Multiple-purpose Vehicle or MPV is a purpose-built departmental derivative of a diesel multiple unit. Twenty-five two-car units were ordered by Railtrack to enable it to replace its varied collection of ageing departmental vehicles, many of which were converted from redundant passenger stock.
Bombardier Transportation was a Canadian-German rolling stock and rail transport manufacturer, headquartered in Berlin, Germany.
The CargoSprinter is a freight multiple unit designed to transport freight or equipment. The CargoSprinter was designed by Windhoff GmbH (Germany) in the mid-1990s.
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A wheelset is a pair of railroad vehicle wheels mounted rigidly on an axle such that both wheels rotate in unison. Wheelsets are often mounted in a bogie – a pivoted frame assembly holding at least two wheelsets – at each end of the vehicle. Most modern freight cars and passenger cars have bogies each with two wheelsets, but three wheelsets are used in bogies of freight cars that carry heavy loads, and three-wheelset bogies are under some passenger cars. Four-wheeled goods wagons that were once near-universal in Europe and Great Britain and their colonies have only two wheelsets; in recent decades such vehicles have become less common as trainloads have become heavier.
The Augsburg Railway Park is a railway museum in Augsburg on part of the former Augsburg locomotive shed owned by the Deutsche Bahn. Following reconstruction work, the park officially reopened on 13 April 2009. In the future, 29 historic locomotives from the EU member countries and also Switzerland will be exhibited in the roundhouse and on the turntable, the so-called Europa Roundhouse, which are protected historical buildings. In addition to the roundhouse there are also three historical steam locomotive halls with a workshop atmosphere and a historical smithy.
Gmeinder GmbH was a German locomotive and engineering company based in Mosbach. Its products included diesel engines, small locomotives (shunters) and other railway locomotive parts. Much of its business came through the German railways, though it also exported to the rest of Europe and the rest of the world.
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Material y Construcciones S.A. or MACOSA was a Spanish heavy-engineering company, mainly producing products for the railway industry. From 1989 onwards the organisation was named Meinfesa and became part of the GEC-Alsthom group of companies, until 2005 when it became part of the Vossloh group as Vossloh España, later renamed Vossloh Rail Vehicles. The plant was sold to Stadler in 2015.
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Schalker Eisenhütte Maschinenfabrik GmbH is a German engineering company, a manufacturer of industrial locomotives and coking furnaces.
The Class T 448.0 is a group of four-axle diesel-electric locomotives manufactured by ČKD Praha for shunting and freight service on secondary and industrial lines built for industrial use in Czechoslovakia and Poland and for the Czechoslovak State Railways (ČSD). Following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, these were divided between the successor companies, the Czech Railways and the Slovak Republic Railways. They have also found their way to a considerable number of private railways in both countries, and ten have been sold to the Korean State Railway of North Korea. Small numbers have also gone elsewhere, such as Italy and Serbia.
The Multi-purpose vehicle is a purpose built departmental derivative of a diesel multiple unit constructed for use as a rail adhesion vehicle by NI Railways in Northern Ireland.
Windhoff AG in Rheine, known for its special purpose vehicles for railway maintenance including Cargo-Sprinter MPVs, has been taken over by Georgsmarienhutte Holding
further bespoke vehicles are fire fighting and rescue trains, and Freight Multiple Units (FMUs) on MPV basis.
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