There are hundreds of materials and a variety of markets available for the worldwide composite materials industry. Each market has specific material and technology needs. Companies need to align their businesses to meet the specific needs of the market they serve. This market report titled “Materials and Application Developments for the Global Rail Market” published by Lucintel in January 2004 focuses on the material and technology needs of the rail industry and provides more than 60 applications of the composite materials for making passenger rail components.

The passenger rail market utilizes composite materials for making of exterior and interior rail components as well as infrastructure components. Interior components made of composites include major items like ceilings, floorings, bulkheads, vestibules, fire barriers, corridor adapter frames, handrails, and luggage bins or racks. Exterior components made of composites include front ends, skirts, exterior panels, body shells, roofs, end cabs and more. Reinforcements used in the rail market are fiberglass, carbon fiber and aramid fiber, and resins used are phenolics, polyesters and epoxies.

Features of this report are:

• Material and technology needs of the rail industry. List of the selected materials and technologies used in the rail industry.
• List of more than 60 composite applications developed for the rail industry. Detailed description on interior and exterior applications with materials and processes used, OEM and molder’s name as applicable.
• Amount of composite materials used in various composite components/applications.
• Profiles of 25 key molders of rail components with materials and manufacturing technologies used.
• Molder distribution by region.
• Profiles on material suppliers.