Leading Innovation in Railcar Products: New Product Development

TrinityRail® strives to innovate our railcars to suit customer demand, and our New Product Development (NPD) team is continuously developing fresh concepts and new ideas. We listen to our customers, study the market, apply our engineering skills, and anticipate future needs. The NPD team collaborates with other teams, such as sales and marketing, to make sure that our new railcars deliver best in class for performance, safety, and reliability.

A key feature of the NPD process is the Stage Gate Process, which helps select and develop the most promising ideas for new products and services. The product development process involves a series of evaluations, from idea collection to market potential assessment, and detailed analysis to development with customer feedback. It concludes with a market launch, ensuring each offering is innovative, customer-oriented, and quality-driven.

TrinityRail’s side seam covered hopper family and the Hourglass™ autorack are great examples of innovations born from the NPD process.

The Hourglass autorack concept originated from an industry need to reduce damage and promote greater ergonomic advantages when operating inside of an autorack railcar. The car features up to 10 inches of additional width throughout much of the length of the car, allowing crews to load today’s wider design vehicles more safely and efficiently with less damage potential to the vehicles.

The 5459 and other covered hoppers in the side seam family are another great development from TrinityRail’s NPD process. These railcars are shorter in length, so they can fit more cars in a train. The 5459 has a weight of 59,000 pounds and a payload of 227,000 pounds. These covered hoppers enhance supply chain efficiency by enabling more cars to be moved at once, increasing the overall profitability of the fleet. TrinityRail introduced corrugated sides in 2005, which help increase capacity while making them stronger, without changing their shape.  

Innovation is one of our core values. We believe that innovation is the key to success in the competitive and dynamic rail industry. Our NPD process is designed to foster creativity, collaboration, and quality in every stage of product development. We strive to deliver solutions that meet the needs of our customers and the market, while promoting safety, reliability, and sustainability. No matter the product or service, we are committed to bringing the best products to life with our NPD process.

For more information, please visit our website www.trinityrail.com.