(The following story by John D. Boyd appeared on The Journal of Commerce website on March 15, 2010.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rail equipment supplier Wabtec bought the signal engineering and design services firm Xorail for $40 million in cash, equal to about one year’s worth of Xorail sales.
“Xorail’s engineering and wayside capabilities are a good fit with our existing railway electronics business,” said Albert J. Neupaver, president and CEO for Wilmerding, Pa.-based Wabtec. He said the new service capabilities it gains in the acquisition “position Wabtec for a larger role as the rail industry implements positive train control technology over the next several years.”
Xorail, in Jacksonville, Fla., provides engineering, design and construction service for railroad signal systems. Those offerings include wayside and road crossing signals as well as the crash-avoidance positive train control technology that railroads are under a congressional mandate to deploy.
Its customers include Class I freight railroads and passenger train systems in North America.