Siemens breaks ground on Gądki locomotive service centre in Poland

Siemens Mobility started construction of its Rail Service Center Poznań in Gądki, near Poznań, on 10 November — the company's first greenfield investment in Poland and a direct addition of heavy-maintenance capacity for locomotive fleets running across Central and Eastern Europe.

The 4,300 m² workshop will hold up to seven locomotives at once, and the site layout is built for full bogie-level work: roughly five kilometres of electrified track, a dedicated testing area, an underfloor wheel lathe for turning wheelsets without lifting the vehicle, and a drop table for removing and replacing bogies and wheelsets.

The project follows its initial announcement in September. Siemens expects the facility to create up to 50 jobs during the initial operating phase.

What changes for operators in the region?

For traction fleets based in Poland and neighbouring markets, the practical gain is workshop slots closer to where the locomotives actually run. Light and heavy maintenance will both be offered on site, which shortens positioning moves and cuts the downtime between a defect being found and a bogie or wheelset actually coming off for repair.

Siemens will also deploy its Railigent X digital maintenance platform at Gądki. The system draws on vehicle data to support maintenance planning and fleet availability — in practice, that means condition-based interventions rather than fixed calendar intervals, with the data feeding decisions on when a locomotive comes into the shop.

How does it fit the existing Polish operation?

Siemens is not starting from zero in Poland. The company already runs an established locomotive maintenance operation there, employing more than 60 specialists and servicing hundreds of vehicles annually. That operation already carries out P4-level heavy maintenance — the deepest revision category — working with Polish suppliers and contractors.

Gądki adds dedicated workshop capacity on top of those activities rather than replacing them. The new site also plugs into Siemens Mobility's wider European maintenance network, which spans more than 130 service locations in over 30 countries, giving operators a single contractual route to maintenance across borders.

Why greenfield, and why now?

The investment signals where Siemens sees fleet growth concentrated. A purpose-built site — rather than leased or converted space — lets the company install the drop table, wheel lathe and electrified test tracks to its own specification from day one, sized for the traffic volumes it expects from Polish and CEE operators.

The 50 initial jobs, set against the 60-plus specialists already employed in Poland, point to a near-doubling of the company's maintenance headcount in the country once the site reaches its first operating phase.

Construction work now proceeds at Gądki, with the facility set to become an operating node in the European network once commissioning is complete.