Sector
Certified welding, sheet metalwork, machining, interior fit-out and spare parts: what rolling stock manufacturers and maintainers expect, and how to prepare your request for a quote.
Rail is an industry built for the long term. A train or tram stays in service for decades, maintained and refurbished, and passenger safety shapes every design and manufacturing choice. Rolling stock manufacturers, their equipment suppliers (bogies, braking, traction, interiors), operators and infrastructure managers therefore buy parts made under rigorously documented conditions.
Volumes remain modest by industrial standards: short runs with a great variety of parts. The share of welding and fabrication is, however, very high, with steel or aluminium structures subject to fatigue. Rail welding is governed by a specific standard, EN 15085, which requires the manufacturer to be certified.
Maintenance and refurbishment open up a second market: spare parts for equipment whose original drawings are sometimes impossible to find. Workshops able to reproduce a part from a sample, inspect it and document it are in demand.
Standards, regulations and practices that buyers expect from their subcontractors.
Derived from the IRIS standard and first published as the technical specification ISO/TS 22163, this standard adds rail-specific requirements to ISO 9001: project control, configuration management, dependability. Manufacturers generally require it of their direct suppliers.
The manufacturer must be certified: welding coordination (EN ISO 14731), qualified welders and welding procedures (EN ISO 9606 and 15614), inspections, documentation. Four certification levels (CL 1 to CL 4) and weld performance classes (CP A to CP D) define what the workshop may produce.
Interior materials are assessed for reaction to fire, smoke density and toxicity (EN 45545-2), according to the operating risk level (HL1 to HL3). This restricts the choice of plastics, laminates and foams.
The RAMS approach (reliability, availability, maintainability, safety) of EN 50126 guides the design of the equipment. On the supplier side, traceability is complete: material certificates, welder qualifications, non-destructive testing reports, inspection records.
Rolling stock is maintained for decades: parts must be able to be remanufactured identically, sometimes from a simple sample. This requires keeping drawings, routings and records, and knowing how to carry out reverse engineering.
Each skill has its own detailed page: services, materials, price factors.
The sector’s core skill: welded assemblies in steel, stainless steel or aluminium compliant with EN 15085, with qualified welders, procedures and coordinator.
Laser or plasma cutting, rolling and bending of sheet and sections for car bodies, partitions and covers, in preparation for welded assemblies.
Machining of connecting parts, bushes and brackets, in small runs or as spare parts. Large dimensions call for suitable machinery.
Surface preparation, painting and corrosion protection for equipment exposed to the weather and to a very long service life.
Dimensional inspection of large welded assemblies and non-destructive testing of welds (dye penetrant, magnetic particle, ultrasonic, radiographic).
Reverse engineering of old parts, drawing updates, calculations and industrialisation studies, useful when the original file is incomplete.
EN 15085 is the reference standard for welding railway vehicles and their components. It covers design, manufacturing, inspection and documentation: a welded part is therefore not assessed on its drawing alone, it requires a workshop whose organisation has been audited.
This standard targets railway vehicles, not every welded part on the network: infrastructure brackets or station furniture fall under other standards, depending on their function. Specify the standard in your project request and see our guide to TIG, MIG and MAG welding processes.
Rolling stock is designed to last. During its life, suppliers change: some disappear, processes change, drawings get lost. Operators and maintainers must nonetheless keep replacing worn parts. Hence a market for spare parts on demand, in small runs, often urgent.
To make such a request succeed, provide everything that exists (drawing, photos, sample, original reference), specify the function and criticality of the part, say whether the workshop may offer an equivalent material and ask for suitable inspection and documentation. The workshop can carry out reverse engineering: measuring the sample on a coordinate measuring machine, rebuilding the 3D model, then manufacturing and inspecting. A design office can complete the process with calculations and an updated drawing.
For a safety-critical part, validation of the rebuilt drawing and of the material remains the responsibility of the maintenance manager or the original manufacturer. Allow time for study and testing.
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In practice, yes for welded assemblies of railway vehicles and their components: the manufacturer must be certified under part 2 of EN 15085, at a level suited to the weld classes requested. For other parts in the sector, such as furniture or infrastructure brackets, the standard depends on the customer.
It is the quality management standard of the rail industry, derived from the IRIS standard. It builds on ISO 9001 and adds requirements on project management, configuration, dependability and supplier control. Manufacturers generally require it of their direct suppliers; for a lower tier, ask what the customer expects.
Often yes. From a sample, the workshop or a design office measures the part, rebuilds a drawing and a 3D model, then manufactures and inspects the part. For a safety-critical part, validation of the rebuilt drawing and of the material must remain the responsibility of the maintenance manager.
EN 45545-2 sets requirements for reaction to fire, smoke density and toxicity for railway vehicle materials, according to the operating risk level (HL1 to HL3) and the function of the part. Your buyer states the level required: include it in your project request so the workshop chooses the right materials.
TIG, MIG, MAG or stick welding: what each process does, for which material and thickness, and what to specify (qualifications, quality level, inspections) in a quote request.
ISO 9001, EN 9100, ISO 13485, IATF 16949: what they certify (a management system, not a product), how to check a certificate and in which cases to require them from a subcontractor.
Skills, capacity, quality, proximity, responsiveness, references, financial strength, communication, price and contract: 10 criteria and a comparison grid.
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