- United Group Rail
United Group Rail is an
Australian rail engineering company and specialises in building and re-building railway cars including electric and diesel passenger trains, electric and diesellocomotive s and freight wagons, particularlyhopper car s for coal and iron ore haulage.Before 1999, the company was known as A Goninan & Co. From 1999 to 2005, it was named United Goninan. The company was renamed United Group Rail in 2005 as part of a reorganisation and merging in of
Alstom 's former Australian subsidiary, Alstom Transport – Australia and New Zealand, which was acquired byUnited Group Limited in that year. [ [http://www.unitedgroupltd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=164&Itemid=258 United Group Limited ] ]History
Founded in
Australia in1899 by brothers Ralph and Alfred Goninan (1865 - 1953) as an engineering and manufacturing company for the coal industry. A. Goninan & Co. Ltd had been incorporated as a public company in 1905 [http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A140330b.htm Goninan, Alfred (1865 - 1953) Biographical Entry - Australian Dictionary of Biography Online ] ] .It entered the rail business in 1917 via
Commonwealth Steel Products Company Limited of Waratah, Newcastle, a wheel and axle manufacturer because they could no longer be imported from Belgium due toWW1 . Goninan & Co. moved to more convenient freehold land at Broadmeadow in 1919 and built a flourishing business in general engineering.They made pitheads, boilers, wagons and a huge, cast 41-ton block for the district's coal trade.The closing of the foundry in 1985 marked the end of an era in general engineering, but the firm still bears his name—though owned by Howard Smith Ltd—and is Australia's largest maker of rail-cars. It was later acquired by United Group in1999 .United Group Rail is based in
Newcastle, New South Wales and is a unit of United Group Limited. It has a staff of 1,200 people acrossAustralia andAsia .Products
* Refurbishment of Metro Cammell M-stock metro cars for
MTR
* mockup - rebuild forMTR 's DisneyLand line
* A. Goninan LRV
* NR74 Locomotive
* EMU for Railgroup
* passenger cars
* freight wagons
* locomotives
* Bogies
* spare parts
* GG20B Green Goat hybrid shunting locomotive with RailPowerClients
*
V/Line
* KCR
*MTR
*CityRail References
* [http://press.arrivenet.com/travel/article.php/412202.html RailPower partners with 'Premier' Australian Railway Engineers United Goninan to market hybrid locomotives in Australia and SE Asia]
* [http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/855.html Alfred Goninan]* [http://www.unitedgroupltd.com/unitedgroup United Group]
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