Vossloh says that its sales were helped by the initial consolidation of Vossloh Tie Technolgies (VTT) in the United States, which contributed sales revenues of €43m in the first half of 2017. Improved margins are attributed to the performance of the Core Components division.

Orders received by Vossloh dropped €7.6m to €465m. However, the order backlog as of June 30 was €737.3m compared with the previous year’s €633.7m.

During the opening six months of 2017, sales from the Core Components division, which comprises the Tie Technologies business unit and the Fastening Systems (VFS) unit, amounted to €174.8m, compared with the previous year’s €106.1m.

VFS increased its year-on-year sales to €133m (25.3%), and the company says that this stems from high demand for rail fastening systems for the new Beijing - Sheyang line in China. Sales are expected to decrease in this area in the second half of 2017. The Ebit margin for Core Components rose to 15.3% compared with the previous year’s 12% with orders amounting to €148.3m, compared with the previous year’s €115.8m.

Due to high-speed projects in France coming to a close, sales in the Customised Modules division fell from €246.7m to €237.9m, but the Lifecycle Solutions division showed a sales increase of 7.9% compared with the previous year, with sales amounting to €42.8m.

Vossloh Locomotives reported sales of €40.2m, which is up from the previous year’s €34.9m. The rest of Vossloh’s Transportation division is no longer part of Vossloh’s core business.

The number of employees in the group has increased from 4079 to 4311 as of June 30 and the company has a sales target of between €1bn and €1.1bn in 2017.