Company profile

SCHALTBAU GmbH, a Munich-based company, produces electromechanical and electronic components that are widely applied in manufacturing of electric rail vehicles and many types of industrial devices. 

The company’s history goes back to 1929 when it launched the production of components used in electric heating systems for trains that were being introduced at the time. Currently, the company is part of SCHALTBAU AG holding that comprises other companies renowned in the railway business, namely PINTSCH BAMAG from Dinslaken and BODE from Kassel. 

SCHALTBAU GmbH has two production plants in Germany and subsidiaries in France, UK, USA, Hong Kong, and two of them in China. It creates a great opportunity to offer products tailored to specific needs of particular markets globally. 

Our products are manufactured in compliance with ISO 9001 quality management system. We also follow ISO 14001 environmental management standards and RoHS directives. Currently, works are being carried out at our production plants in order to meet the requirements of International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS). 

The company has 399 collaborators in 54 countries. In 2008, SCHALTBAU GmbH recorded the turnover of EUR 50.7 million. Since 1994, it has been a publicly listed company on the German stock market.

Company offer 

Our “pride and joy” is the production of components and subsystems for passenger coaches, locomotives, trams and traction vehicles as well as for electric drives used in buses. 

We make a vital contribution to new designs and specific solutions, providing rail vehicles with the following components:

- control and signalling devices, in particular drive controllers and tilting switches on the driver’s console

Drive controllers are manufactured on the basis of detailed technical arrangements made with a client, with emphasis placed on the specific type of the control system of a rail vehicle drive and the drive itself. One of our latest projects in this field is a controller for the modernised electric multiple unit EMU EN57 as well as the trains EN61 and 19WE produced by NEWAG Nowy Sącz. Of course, our controllers are manufactured in accordance with the latest standards in terms of control solutions: they have 4÷20 mA analogue output and comply with CAN-bus protocol.

- direct and alternating current contactors, low and high voltage 

I dare say that the range of contactors – in particular designed for direct current circuits – is the widest of all manufacturers of such devices that I am familiar with. Our contactors offer reliable service in both high voltage cabinets (3kV DC) and in passenger coaches heating systems as well as in telecommunication power plants, feeding GSM station transmitters. They cover the range of switching currents 40÷1200A with the voltage 24÷5000V.

- standardised electric connectors

The offer of our connectors is very rich. Our products comply with UIC558 in the so-called 13 and 18 pole inter-coach wireless couplers, connectors for coach heating systems fed from 3 kV traction, compliant with UIC552, as well as popular electro-pneumatic couplers compliant with UIC541-5VE. Apart from that we offer connectors that are used on a broad scale in lighting technologies, sound systems, medical devices and military telecommunication devices. We are well known globally for delivering connectors used in battery-electric trucks, fork lifts and other battery-powered vehicles and devices.

- exceptionally wide range of high-voltage devices for railway vehicles

All of these devices are either fed directly from overhead power systems or are controlled by them. There is much to choose from: complete high voltage cabinets, voltage sensors and voltage selectors, switchers, selective devices, disconnecting and earthing devices, emergency converter start-up devices, fuses, contactors and high voltage heaters. 

The majority of these devices operate in the system of feeding electric heaters directly from the traction in the heating system of a passenger coach or in the converter supply system to air-conditioning. The task is not as easy as it seems: the overhead power system in Europe has the voltages of 1kV 16⅔ Hz, 1.5 kV DC, 1.5 kV 50Hz, 3kV DC and 3kV 50Hz, and in order to provide constant power of receivers, the controlling system should be fully automatised with respect to high voltage. This task is carried out by the complete high-voltage cabinet.

- complete high voltage cabinets for wagons heating systems

The cabin is mounted under the floor of a passenger coach. It is a complete solution to the problem of heating a coach from the electric traction 3 kV DC. It only requires connecting the voltage from a busbar 3 kV and heaters grouped in two sections 24 kW each. A novelty in recent batches has been the addition of a disconnecting and earthing device, which guarantees its safe operation during check-up or servicing. You can find it in upgraded WLAB sleep coaches.

- controllers and wiring of electromagnetic brakes

This is now a hot issue due to the necessity to adapt upgraded passenger coaches in Poland to the speed of 160km/h or more. A complete system controlling electromagnets is composed of a two-circuit controller, a distributor box on a wagon body, a distributor box on a bogie and a system of disconnecting wiring and internal fixed connections. The controller is delivered in a professional box mounted under a coach floor.

- durable and reliable switching devices and limit switches 

A number of cutting-edge solutions have been used in them that are connected with patent technologies in terms of materials for electric contacts as well as mechanical solutions in the switch construction itself – considerably extending their mechanical and electrical durability to 5-10 million switches with the 10A currents. They are as follows: mechanisms of forced contacts opening, their self-cleansing when switching, arc exhaust and control of final positions.

- elements of optical and acoustic signalling systems, and coach equipment

They are probably the only elements of train construction in our offer which can be seen or used by passengers. They are: optical signalling of occupancy or toilet failure, hand driers in WC, time relays establishing the time of water flow to a sink or voltage in razor sockets.