In order to meet the growing requirements in India of air spring systems, including those for rail vehicles, ContiTech is planning to produce air spring systems at its Sonepat plant New Delhi. “The Indian railway market is one of the fastest-expanding markets in which we are active”, explains Friedrich Hoppmann, head of the ContiTech Railway Engineering segment. “We are localizing our manufacturing operations so as to be in a better position to cater for the demand. Also, we are planning to increase annual output substantially.” The company already supplies about half the air spring systems for rail vehicles in India.India is a growing market for airsprings, both in the rail and commercial vehicle segment. The Indian railways is the world’s largest rail network and is a major consumer of air springs. Currently Firestone has established a manufacturing facility in India jointly with the TVS group and Vibracoutic has a joint venture with the Sigma group for manufacturing suspension components, including air springs. Contitech is the third global company to set up manufacturing facility for air springs.
Operations will be expanded at the Sonepat plant where ContiTech India (Private) Ltd. already makes high-grade products for the car and commercial vehicle industry, among others. “We will be using the existing resources in order to manufacture and assemble air spring systems in India to the usual ContiTech quality level”, stated Hoppmann. The production site will be expanded step by step. Later, there will be a middle two-digit number of employees working here.
India’s railway services are currently undergoing massive change, with railway tracks and rail cars being extensively modernized. ContiTech is benefiting from the upswing thanks to its dominant market position and eleven years of being present in the market. In collaboration with the Indian railway’s own research institute RDSO, the air spring expert will be replacing the cars’ largely obsolete suspension and damping technology with modern systems in the next few years.
At present, local transit system trains in Bombay are being modernized with the help of ContiTech. Via its local partner, Resistoflex, ContiTech is supplying a significant number of air spring systems for the Siemens electric multi-unit (EMU) trains there. In an initial conversion phase, these air spring systems will be installed in existing carriages, and in a second phase, they will be integrated into new vehicles as well.
ContiTech also supplies original equipment to the Indian train company RCF and the manufacturer Integral Coach Factory (ICF). The RCF’s fleet, for example, consists of more than 40,000 passenger carriages and about half a million freight cars. RCF has been equipping passenger carriages with air spring systems since 1997.
