Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles

Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (Grupo CAF, literally "Construction & Other Railway Services") is a Spanish publicly listed company which manufactures railway vehicles and equipment and buses through its Solaris Bus & Coach subsidiary. It is based in Beasain, Basque Autonomous Community. Equipment manufactured by Grupo CAF includes light rail vehicles, rapid transit trains, railroad cars and locomotives, as well as variable gauge axles that can be fitted on any existing truck or bogie.

Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, S.A.
Sociedad Anónima
Traded asBMAD: CAF
ISINES0121975017 
IndustryManufacturing
Founded1917 (Compañía Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles)
HeadquartersBeasain, Spain
Number of locations
11 factories, including: Beasain (Basque Country)
Zaragoza (Aragon)
Irún (Basque Country)
Linares (Andalusia)
Hortolandia (Brazil)
Huehuetoca (Mexico)
Elmira, New York (US)
Key people
Jose María Baztarrica Garijo, Andrés Arizkorreta (Chief Executive Officer and Chairman)
ProductsDesign, manufacture, maintenance and supply of equipment and components for railway systems
Revenue € 1,45 billion (2014
€ 146 million EBITDA (2014)
€ 62 million (2014)
OwnerPublic; Employees via Cartera Social S.A. (30%); Guipúzcoa Donostia Kutxa (23%)
Number of employees
11,433[1] (december 2018 inc. subsidiaries)
WebsiteCAF.net
Mass Transit Railway Hong Kong A-Stock EMU built by CAF and Adtranz

Over the 20 years from the early 1990s, CAF benefited from the rail investment boom in its home market in Spain to become a world player with a broad technical capability, able to manufacture almost any type of rail vehicle.[2] CAF has supplied railway rolling stock to a number of major urban transit operators around Europe, the US, South America, East Asia, India, Australia and North Africa.

History
Bucharest Metro trains, built between 2013 and 2014

CAF was an acronym for the earlier name of Compañía Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, as well as for Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles.

Fábrica de Hierros San Martín

In 1860 Domingo Goitia, Martín Usabiaga and José Francisco Arana established this company, whose main activity was puddling furnaces and cylinder rolling.

La Maquinista Guipuzcoana

In 1892 Francisco de Goitia (Domingo Goitia's son and heir) joined the Marquess of Urquijo to set up La Maquinista Guipuzcoana, whose main activity was the operation of machinery and the forging and construction of railway rolling stock.

In 1898 it set up its plant in Beasain, Gipuzkoa. In 1905 it changed its name to Fábrica de Vagones de Beasain (FVB).

Compañía Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles

Compañía Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) was founded in 1917, specializing in freight car production and with a total of 1,600 employees.

In 1940 the Irun factory was set up, following the expansion of activity after the Spanish Civil War (CAF took part in reconstructing the Spanish rail fleet).

In 1954 CAF took over Material Móvil y Construcciones (MMC) from Zaragoza (Aragon), a company with extensive experience in manufacturing long-distance and subway trains.

Since 1958 the company has modernized and enlarged its Beasain plant and expanded its activity to include all kinds of rolling stock. In line with this, in 1969 CAF created its Research and Development Unit, which increased the company's competitiveness and intensified the focus on in-house technology.

Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles

In 1971 the existing Compañía Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) merged with Material Móvil y Construcciones (MMC) and the company adopted its current name Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles.

Subsidiaries

CAF U.S.A., a wholly owned subsidiary of CAF, was incorporated in 1998[3] and is based in Elmira, New York. It manufactures rolling stock for the North American market at a plant in Elmira that the company acquired from ADtranz in 2000.[4] The company from Beasain continued its expansion during the third millennium.

On 24 May 2019, it announced the acquisition of the Swedish company Euromaint at a cost of circa € 80 million, following other international contracts to supply Flemish and English railway and underground networks in 2017.[5][6]

CAF Rolling Stock U.K. Ltd.[7] is the CAF subsidiary in the United Kingdom. Its factory is based at Celtic Springs Business Park, at Llanwern steelworks near Newport, Wales as a result of an agreement made between CAF and the Welsh Government.[8] The Newport factory will build stock for Transport for Wales, Northern, the Docklands Light Railway, and potentially High Speed 2 if CAF win the bid process.

Political activity

During the 2019 United Kingdom general election, CAF Rail UK Limited made a donation of £50,000 to the Conservative Party.[9]

Rolling stock

EMU and DMU
Renfe Operadora Class 121

Locomotives

For FEVE, now part of Renfe Operadora:

For Euskotren:

  • UT200
  • UT300
  • UT900
  • UT950
  • UT3500
  • Euskotren XXI

For Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca:

For other operators:

Metro

For Madrid:

For Barcelona:

Class 5000

For Helsinki:

Trams
  • Urbos 1 (Tranvía de Bilbao)
  • Urbos 2 (Tranvía de Vélez-Málaga, Tranvía de Vitoria and Metro de Sevilla).
  • Urbos 3 (Metrocentro de Sevilla, Tranvía de Zaragoza, Metropolitano de Granada, Metro de Málaga and Tranvía Metropolitano de la Bahía de Cádiz).

Outside Spain: trains
Algiers Metro
Heathrow Express Class 332
Tren de la Costa unit acquired in 1995

Newport factory, South Wales, UK
British Rail Class 195 Civity, one of the prospective units to be manufactured at the CAF production line in Newport, Wales
Main article: CAF Newport

CAF Rolling Stock U.K. Ltd announced in 2017 its UK factory location was selected as Celtic Business Park at Llanwern steelworks in Newport, Wales.[13] It has at least five confirmed UK projects from 2019 onwards and will be the site for their bid to design stock for High Speed 2. The site was funded with support from the Welsh Government Inward Investment Programme.[8]

Outside Spain: metros and trams
Brussels Metro new unit built by CAF
Rome metro
Caracas metro
Budapest tram Line 1, the longest passenger tram in the world
São Paulo commuter rail
CAF 5000 on Line B of the Buenos Aires Underground

See also
  • Karlos Arguiñano, a former worker at CAF who later became famous as a TV chef.
  • Variable gauge axles [20]

References
  1. https://www.caf.net/upload/accionista/Informe-RSC_220219%20DEF.pdf%5B%5D
  2. Hondius, Dr Harry. "IN FOCUS: CAF, A versatile enterprise that keeps expanding". Railway Gazette International. 168, No. 4 (April 2012).
  3. "Building on a century of progress and success [company history]". CAF USA. Retrieved May 15, 2018.
  4. Jamieson, R. (March 24, 2015). "CAF USA keeps Elmira area's rail heritage rolling". Star-Gazette. Elmira, New York. Retrieved May 15, 2018.
  5. "CAF logra contratos para suministrar tranvías en Bélgica y Suecia". www.eitb.eus (in Spanish). Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  6. "El Grupo CAF refuerza su actividad con la compra de la empresa sueca EuroMaint". www.eitb.eus (in Spanish). Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  7. "CAF ROLLING STOCK UK LIMITED - Overview (free company information from Companies House)". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 2019-08-09.
  8. "More than 3000 new Welsh jobs created following inward investment". GOV.WALES. Retrieved 2019-08-09.
  9. "View donation". The Electoral Commission. Retrieved 29 May 2020.
  10. CAF project page on MÁV
  11. Arrived from Spain this morning
  12. "More new trains for the North and Scotland". TransPennine Express. TransPennine Express. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  13. "THE NEW CAF PLANT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM WILL BE BUILT IN NEWPORT (WALES)". Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles. 13 July 2017. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  14. Carter, Kirsty (2019-06-10). "CAF Unveils Bid To Supply Oaris Trains To HS2". Rail Professional. Retrieved 2019-08-09.
  15. Ltd, DVV Media International. "Railway supply industry news round-up". Railway Gazette. Retrieved 2019-08-09.
  16. "CAF commences design and engineering on DMUs for Wales and Borders franchise". www.railtechnologymagazine.com. Retrieved 2019-08-09.
  17. CAF project page on Debrecen
  18. CAF project page on Budapest
  19. "CAF wins order for new DLR trains | Railnews | Today's news for Tomorrow's railway". www.railnews.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-08-09.
  20. "Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, we create railway solutions ::". CAF. Archived from the original on 2012-02-14. Retrieved 2009-07-15.
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