Nencki
Nencki AG is a Swiss family-owned machine builder in Langenthal whose Railway Technology business unit supplies bogie test stands and bogie workshop equipment to rail vehicle manufacturers and maintainers worldwide.
Nencki AG is based in Langenthal in the canton of Bern, where it develops and manufactures hydraulically and electronically controlled machinery. The company was founded in 1947, and according to the company’s own channels employs around 100 people, including 15 apprentices.
Ownership passed from the Nencki family to the Käppeli family in the 1970s, and the company is now led by the second generation. Railway Technology is one of three business units, alongside plant technology and vehicle bodywork.
Core products and services
The railway unit specialises in equipment for bogie and undercarriage maintenance, from individual machines to complete workshop concepts. Its bogie test stands check wheel loads, axle distances, bogie geometry and secondary air suspension leakage under load, before disassembly or remounting on the vehicle.
The range further includes spring test presses for coil, leaf and rubber-metal springs, damper test machines, bogie lifting and exchange systems, and wheel weighing machines. According to the company’s own channels, the wheel weighing facility can measure a complete vehicle in under 30 minutes, with evaluation programmed according to the EN 14363 standard.
A second product field within the wider maintenance and workshop equipment market is machinery for stationary long-rail welding plants, supplied as individual machines or complete welding line concepts.
Market position
According to the company’s own channels, Nencki equipment is in service with European operators and manufacturers as well as in Asia, and the company won the order for all 13 bogie test machines for the China Railway Highspeed depots in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Guangzhou together with a local partner, around 2010.
Metro Istanbul took delivery of a bogie test stand in 2018 and ordered an identical second machine, which passed factory acceptance in February 2020. More than 300 Nencki machines are in operation worldwide, and the 150th bogie test stand was purchased by Rhätische Bahn.
India partnership
Nencki has partnered with the Indian company RENMAKCH to supply two bogie test stands to Gujarat Metro Rail Corporation, produced locally under the Make in India policy.
