Wascosa, the Switzerland-based freight wagon leasing firm, is expanding its fleet with the purchase of 1,700 new wagons.

This investment in new rolling stock will also further bring down the average age of its fleet from 13 years down to 10 years, consolidating Wascosa’s position as Europe’s market leader in modern wagon ownership. This is based on data collected by transportation consultancy SCI Verkehr GmbH. it ranked Wascosa above the likes of GATX Rail Europe (18 years average), Nacco/CIT (19) and VTG (20).

Investment

In addition to its latest acquisition of vehicles from various manufacturers, Wascosa has also recently acquired 200 Fanps bulk freight ‘hopper’ wagons. These wagons, says Wascosa, are particularly suited to transporting gravel and ballast with stones bigger than six milimetres. They can also be fitted with telematics tracking systems, a process which Wascosa is also accelerating across its fleet.

Peter Balzer, CEO of Wascosa, said: “The benefits of Europe’s youngest fleet are evident to our customers: low noise, safe and highly efficient. Digitalisation has definitely taken hold in the freight wagon industry and the trend is unstoppable.”