Pandrol
Pandrol is a supplier of rail fastening systems and aluminothermic welding, operating as the rail infrastructure business of the French family-controlled Delachaux Group.
The business traces its origin to the Elastic Rail Spike Corporation, founded in the United States in 1932, with the British Elastic Rail Spike Company formed in London in 1937. The UK company was renamed Pandrol in 1972, after the rail clip patented in 1957 by Norwegian railway engineer Per Pande-Rolfsen. The British entity, Pandrol Ltd, is based in Addlestone, UK, while the group is headquartered in Colombes, France. The company reports around 1,700 employees across 40 locations worldwide.
Products and services
Pandrol’s core product line is elastic rail fastening systems, spanning the original Pandrol clip, the e-Clip, the threadless Fastclip family, and the Nabla system used on tramway and concrete-sleeper track. The systems connect rails to ballasted and slab trackforms and meet the performance requirements of the EN 13481 series, with the corresponding test methods set out in EN 13146.
The second core business is aluminothermic welding for rail joints, a field the Delachaux side of the company has worked in since the early twentieth century. Pandrol also manufactures fastening installation equipment, including mechanised clipping and declipping machines for track construction and renewals.
A third product area covers resilient track components: under sleeper pads for ballasted track and floating slab and embedded rail systems for non-ballasted track. The portfolio further includes electrification products such as conductor rail and rigid catenary systems for urban networks.
Market position
Pandrol operates nine fastening manufacturing facilities. The company states that its products are in use in more than 100 countries and that its fastenings equip approximately half of the world’s railway networks.
Customer types span national infrastructure managers, urban transit operators, and heavy haul railways, with fastening systems rated for axle loads up to 40 tonnes. In January 2026, SNCF Réseau approved Pandrol’s under sleeper pads, produced from recycled rubber, for use on the French national network.
Ownership and structure
Pandrol was acquired by the Delachaux Group in 2003, and in 2017 all of the group’s rail infrastructure businesses were consolidated under the Pandrol brand. The Delachaux Group was delisted from Euronext Paris in 2011 and is majority-owned by the Delachaux family; Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) became minority shareholder in 2018, acquiring the stake held since 2011 by CVC Capital Partners.
Current activity
In February 2026, Pandrol completed a product carbon footprint assessment of its PLA and PLA Evo aluminothermic welding processes, carried out with South Pole and validated by Bureau Veritas. In May 2026, the Pandrol Rahee Technologies joint venture in India announced a growth and technology roadmap targeting increased production of track systems for the Indian and export markets.
