Waggonbau Görlitz
The Waggonbau Görlitz Corporation was a manufacturer of locomotives and rolling stock established in the German city of Görlitz in 1849. They are best known for the double-decker rail cars that had been in production since 1935. In 1998 the plant was acquired by Bombardier Transportation to produce the Bombardier Double-deck Coach brand. From 2021 to 2025 it belonged to Alstom.
In 2025 it was sold to arms manufacturer KNDS, and from 2026 produces tanks such as the Leopard 2 for the German army. It remained open for the remainder of 2025 to finish orders of the Twindexx Dosto for Israel Railways and several trams. Around 400 employees were retained.
On 16 December 2025 the last train wagon was delivered.
History
The company's origins go back to saddlemaker who opened his workshop on June 5, 1828, in Görlitz at the Obermarkt. A year later in April 1829 he moved to the Langengasse and began building coaches, and later moved to a larger workshop at Demianiplatz. On October 18, 1849, Lüders and Conrad Schiedt won a public tender from the municipality of Görlitz for the construction of two rail cars to transport timber from the Görlitzer Heide. Schiedt owned a metal works shop in the Büttnergasse producing the iron parts required for the otherwise wooden rail coaches. Lüders moved the rolling stock manufactory to the Brunnenstrasse the same year.The rolling stock works continued to flourish during the expansion of rail transport in Germany and the German Customs Union. Already in 1852, it delivered 81 rail cars and by the end of the year the factory employed 205 men from nine trades. Lüders bought a number of buildings at Brunnenstrasse and established a factory with steam hammers in 1853 at the site – the beginning of industrial production. The number of employees grew to 500 in 1862. The rail car deliveries grew to 300 in 1856 and 426 in 1869 including military equipment. In 1869 Lüders agreed to sell the factories to the Berlin merchant J. Mamroth for 600,000 thaler.
The new owner reorganized the works into a stock corporation to allow for further expansion. The initial public offering of 800,000 thalers on February 3, 1869 was oversubscribed, with 2,000,000 thalers of shares sold by February 10. On May 26, the Lüders factories were bought by the stock corporation that registered on June 21, 1869. Lüders was offered a position of technical director but declined – the first director was to be Heinrich August Samann. In 1872, the company built 2,000 rail cars, employing 1,222 workers. Due to rising costs for raw material, the first dividends were not paid out until 1875.
In 1921, the Waggonfabrik Görlitz merged with the Görlitzer Maschinenbau AG and the Cottbuser Maschinenbau-Anstalt und Eisengießerei AG to the WUMAG - '. Due to financial troubles, as many as eight corporations founded the EISLIG the same year, but WUMAG's participation only lasted until December 1925 as it was deemed unprofitable for them. However, during that time was the presentation of the that came to be a market success – and they are still in production.
In 1935, the first double-decker coaches were built for the Lübeck-Büchen Railway Company to serve lines in Hamburg.
Under Nazi Germany, the factories were reorganized to serve the military buildup. During World War II, the number of German workers dropped from 2,322 to 1,478 while the number of forced laborers grew to 1,974 from a nearby concentration camp. After the war, the Soviet occupiers ordered the disassembly of the factories for war reparations. During that time, a great fire on August 7/8, 1945 destroyed most of the remaining rolling stock factory. The remains of Factory I were handed over to German administration on September 10, 1945, the Factory II on January 25, 1946.
The German administration began to rebuild the factories. After the former management fled to the west, Otto Schuhknecht and Willi Gerlach became the new directors. Due to reconstruction requirements a number of orders came from the Deutsche Reichsbahn, and the number of workers rose to 242 in December 1945 and 1,500 by the end of 1946. In that the time the engineering works were spun off into a new WUMAG Engineering Corporation to carry on the name, while the rail car construction was put under the new name of VEB Waggonbau Görlitz. This would be included in the LOWA group in 1948.
The company started to produce a wide range of products apart from rail cars. The number of employees rose to 5,754 by the end of 1950. The company became a major supplier of railway companies throughout the Eastern Bloc, and between 1970 and 1983 turnover doubled to 294.5 million Mark. Although bogie production was moved to Vetschau, the company's high demand for workers led to Polish foreign workers being employed since 1988. At the end of 1988, the numbers showed 3,576 German workers along with 240 Polish workers producing 337 rail cars including 115 double-deck coaches.
With the German reunification the company was reorganized - state-owned enterprises were subject to privatization and the Görlitz factories became owned by Waggonbau Görlitz GmbH, as of May 1, 1990 a subsidiary of DWA'. The DWA would later rename the Görlitz rolling stock facilities into DWA Werk Görlitz and it would be rebuilt into a competence center for double-deck coaches and ICE T coaches. On July 5, 1995 the 5,000th double-deck coach was delivered to Deutsche Bahn. The still state-owned DWA was finally sold to private equity firm Advent International in March 1996.
On August 29, 1996, Deutsche Bahn ordered of 58 double-deck coaches and 192 rail coaches with an option for another 350 coaches. On the November 28, 1996, a new construction building was opened at Factory II and in 1997 the Factory I site was closed down. At the end of 1996, the numbers showed 1,200 employees and 105 apprentices. In 1997 negotiations began with Bombardier Transportation which led to the integration of DWA into Bombardier on February 2, 1998. On April 3, 1998, the first ICE-T was delivered and beginning 1998/1999 the first trains were delivered, also known as Bombardier Double-deck Electrical Multiple Units'' Intercity trains.
Deutsche Bahn continued to order delivery of double-deck coaches from its contract in 1996. Further double-deck coaches were developed for Israel and Denmark. Some more double-deck coaches were sold to Luxembourg and the Netherlands, and finally in 2008 the first double-deck cars for Poland were built. Some factories were closed down in reorganizations while other buildings were rebuilt, and by the end of 2008 the Görlitz rolling stock facilities had 1,212 employees and 49 apprentices.
On January 5, 2009, Deutsche Bahn ordered 800 double-deck coaches of the new 2010 Generation from Bombardier, and by the end of 2010 another contract for 135 Intercity double-deck EMUs was achieved. The new double-deck rail cars were able to win other public tenders throughout Europe such that the factories produced at full capacity up to 2014.
After acquiring Bombardier, Alstom announced plans in 2024 to close the plant and shift production to Poland by mid-2026, despite an agreement with union IG Metall the previous year where employees waived the right to €34 million in vacation pay to secure their future employment.
The employees organized a ceremony to commemorate the last 3 wagons built in the factory on 20 October 2025.