UGL Rail is an Australian rail engineering company and specialises in building and re-building railway cars including electric and diesel passenger trains, electric and diesel locomotives, and freight wagons (particularly hopper cars for coal and iron ore haulage). It is a business unit of UGL Limited and is based in Melbourne, Victoria, with a staff of 1,200 people across Australia and Asia. UGL Rail owns 20% of Metro Trains Melbourne, the consortium which ran Melbourne's metro railway network from 30 November 2009.
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Founded in Australia in 1899 by Cornish 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.[1]
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 to World War I. Goninan & Co. moved to more convenient freehold land at Broadmeadow in 1919 and built a flourishing business in general engineering.[1] They made pitheads, boilers, wagons and a huge, cast 41-ton block for the district's coal trade.[1] 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.[1] It was later acquired by United Group Limited in 1999.
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 by United Group Limited in that year.[2]
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