BATEGU Gummitechnologie
BATEGU Gummitechnologie is an Austrian manufacturer of rubber and rubber-metal components for railway vehicles, headquartered in Vienna and supplying sealing and anti-vibration elements to rolling stock builders and operators.
Founded in 1948, BATEGU develops and produces elastomer compounds and moulded components in rubber, rubber-metal and rubber-plastic combinations. The company operates from Vienna and is a member of the Austrian Association of the Railway Industry (Verband der Bahnindustrie).
Rail is one of several sectors it serves alongside automotive, aerospace, shipbuilding, cable cars and mechanical and plant engineering.
In February 2022, BATEGU filed for insolvency at the Vienna Commercial Court and entered restructuring proceedings without self-administration, with liabilities exceeding assets by roughly 2.2 million EUR. The company continued operating through the process under the name BATEGU Gummitechnologie GmbH in Liqu., as recorded in the Austrian commercial register.
Products for rail
BATEGU’s railway portfolio consists of seals, bellows and flexible connections: sealing profiles for doors and windows, and elastomer elements that connect and decouple structures across the vehicle. The anti-vibration range covers layer springs, conical and hour-glass springs, spring pads, spherical bearings, and engine and gearbox mounts, primarily for bogies.
Components are produced both for new-build vehicles and as spare parts. Flame-retardant EPDM sealing profiles are made in cooperation with the German extrusion specialist M+R Dichtungstechnik.
Materials and EN 45545
The company’s material programme is built around EN 45545, the European fire-safety standard for railway vehicles that replaced national standards from 2016. Development started earlier: in 2011, ahead of the final standard, BATEGU presented a natural-rubber-based material meeting the then-draft requirement set for anti-vibration components in bogies.
Its two material families for anti-vibration components, BTG 9713 and BTG 9559, span hardnesses from 40 to 85 Shore A and meet requirement set R9 at hazard level 2 or 3. BTG 9559, introduced in 2015, is based on ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) rubber yet retains dynamic properties previously reserved for natural rubber. A separate sealing-profile variant, BTG 9713-P, meets requirement sets R22 and R23 at hazard level 3.
Both material lines are halogen-free and conform to the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive, the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation, and the Union of the European Railway Industries (UNIFE) Railway Industry Substance List. Existing vulcanisation tooling can be used, which allows operators to retrofit vehicles to EN 45545 without redesigning proven components.
Market position
Elastomer parts are distributed across the rolling stock components of a modern train, and fire-safety compliance has become a deciding procurement criterion for them. The certified BATEGU materials cover hardnesses from 40 to 85 Shore A.
The company supplies rolling stock manufacturers and railway operators across Europe. In 2014, Wiener Linien, Vienna’s public transport operator, contracted BATEGU for around 1,500 EN 45545-compliant layer springs for low-floor trams.
The company states that its range of EN 45545-compliant elastomer materials is the largest worldwide.
Current activity
The most recently documented product development is the EPDM-based BTG 9559 material and the associated extrusion cooperation with M+R Dichtungstechnik, introduced in 2014–2015. No later product launch or contract has been identified.
