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, Spain. 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. 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. 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. "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 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. 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. CAF Rolling Stock U.K. Ltd. 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. The Newport factory has built stock for Transport for Wales, Arriva Rail North, 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 . Design flaws. In March 2016, 19 British Rail Class 332 units were taken out of service after a crack was discovered in the underframe of one unit during routine maintenance. In December 2017, the Besançon Tramway in Besançon, France discovered cracks in their Urbos 3s vehicles around the bogie box area of the bodies, which in December 2020 CAF paid for remedial work to be performed with each unit affected requiring one month downtime for the work to be completed. In April 2021, 22 British Rail Class 195 Civity units were temporarily removed from service after routine maintenance revealed a  yaw damper bracket had detached from the body of unit 195121. On June 11th, 2021, West Midlands Metro (operating between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, England) were forced to suspend their services due to similar cracks being discovered in the bogie box areas of their Urbos 3s vehicles, with ongoing investigations continuing to identify any other issues relating to the cracks and to find options for remedial works to be performed. Full service only began once more in February 2022. Following on from these instances, in November 2021 the New South Wales transport minister Rob Stokes announced that the Sydney L1 Dulwich  Hill Line would be decommissioned for up to 18 months, due to serious design flaws in all 12 of the CAF Urbos 3s tram sets that were running on the line. Stokes stated that the flaws (in the bogie boxes) were likely to be far broader in scope than those identified in Sydney due to the thousands of the same tram type operated around the world. In March 2022, the West Midlands Metro was again forced to suspend its services due to the discovery of more cracks, this time on the bodywork of the trams. Rolling stock. Locomotives. For FEVE , now part of Renfe Operadora: For Euskotren: For Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca: For other operators: Metro. For Madrid: For Barcelona: For Helsinki: For Bucharest: For Amsterdam: Outside Spain: trains. Newport factory, South Wales, UK. 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. 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. Construcciones y Auxiliar