Wabtec Corporation recently held the ground-breaking ceremony for a new ‘green’ factory in Bochum that will develop and manufacture brakes — as well as maintaining brakes and couplers — for ‘transit vehicles’.

It is being built by the project developer Panattoni Europe.

Lilian Leroux, president of Wabtec’s Transit division (www.wabteccorp.com), said: “This new building represents a major investment in Wabtec’s capabilities and expertise to deliver green business-critical products and services for our customers.

"It will be an environment-friendly facility focused on producing a variety of transit braking solutions, including segmented and conventional disc applications and brake control systems for customers around the world.”

When completed in the third quarter of 2020, the 34,000m² site will have a production area of 9,200m2, a storage area of 5,100m² and 5,600m² of office space.

The facility has been designed with sustainability at its core.

It will include a ‘green roof’ on the administration building and will use geothermal heating; also featured will be ‘intelligent’ light control and photovoltaics and charging stations for e-cars and e-bikes.