Key takeaways
- Bombardier Transportation no longer exists. The company was absorbed into Alstom in 2021.
- The products live on: TRAXX, Talent, Twindexx and Flexity are still in the range, just under a different group.
- The German plants are the real core – Hennigsdorf, Görlitz and Bautzen represent a long tradition of vehicle building.
- TRAXX is the most influential family: hardly any European freight corridor is without these locomotives.
- You identify the origin on the vehicle by the builder's plate, not the group name.
Contents
- 1.Fact file
- 2.Business areas
- 3.Structure & brands
- 4.History at a glance
- 5.How to recognise the company
- 6.Strengths and weaknesses
- 7.What actually happened in 2021
- 8.A company history built in layers
- 9.The product families and their features
- 10.Where the vehicles run today
- 11.How to deal with a name that’s disappeared
- 12.Conclusion
- 13.Frequently asked questions
Fact file
| Status | Absorbed into Alstom in 2021 – no longer exists as an independent company |
|---|---|
| Role in the system | former rolling stock manufacturer – locomotives, multiple units, trams, metros |
| German headquarters | Berlin, with plants including Hennigsdorf, Görlitz and Bautzen |
| Predecessor | Adtranz, before that ABB Daimler-Benz Transportation and the German wagon-building traditions |
| Best-known families | TRAXX, Talent, Twindexx, Flexity, Itino |
| Current legal successor | Alstom – the product lines continue there |
| Significance today | very present at the lineside, gone as a company |
| Official website | www.alstom.com |
Business areas
Structure & brands
History at a glance
How to recognise Bombardier Transportation
Does the train really belong to Bombardier Transportation?
- TRAXX body shape – straight loco body with a distinctively angled front and roof edge
- Talent 2 front – angular, strongly structured nose, quite different from the FLIRT's rounded shape
- Jacobs bogies on the Talent – articulated car bodies sharing common bogies
- Twindexx double-deck – distinctive transition area between the upper and lower level
- Flexity trams – low-floor vehicles with city-specific fronts on a shared base
- Builder's plates from Hennigsdorf or Görlitz – the manufacturer plate reveals the origin despite the new group name
Strengths and weaknesses
What the company stands for
- The types are very widespread across Europe and turn up almost everywhere
- TRAXX locomotives run for dozens of operators in completely different liveries
- Vehicles from several decades stand side by side – good for comparison series
- Old builder's plates keep the origin traceable even after the name change
- Withdrawn types move on to smaller operators and stay visible for longer as a result
Where it falls short
- The company name no longer exists – information in older sources is out of date
- TRAXX variants look almost identical from outside but differ substantially in technology
- Talent and Talent 2 are constantly confused, even though they are different vehicles
- Working out which plants and product lines went where after the takeover is confusing
- A lot of unreliable figures circulate about production numbers and contract values
Updated: August 2026 – Thousands of vehicles from a manufacturer that no longer exists run on German tracks every day. Bombardier Transportation was taken over by Alstom in 2021 and absorbed into it. The company has disappeared, the product names TRAXX, Talent and Twindexx have not – and that’s exactly where the confusion in sighting lists comes from.
Note the type, not the company name
Manufacturers disappear, classes remain – with Traintrack your list stays usable for good.
What actually happened in 2021
Alstom took over Bombardier Transportation in full. It was not a merger of equals or a shareholding, but an integration: plants, contracts, product lines and staff all moved to the other group. The name Bombardier Transportation has not existed as an independent company since.
European competition regulators did not clear the takeover without conditions. Alstom had to give up sites and product lines, including the Talent 3 platform, which went to the Spanish manufacturer CAF. Conditions like this are the reason vehicle families sometimes end up split between two groups after a merger.
A company history built in layers
The actual core of the company is older than the name. Rolling stock was built in Hennigsdorf, Görlitz, Bautzen and Mannheim long before a Canadian group got involved there. Adtranz brought in the East German wagon-building works, whose legacy is still visible on vehicles today – for instance on the DWA LVT/S, which continued running as the Class 672.9.
For spotters this is more than company history. It explains why vehicles carry builder’s plates with names that match neither the current group nor the livery. The builder’s plate states where and when a vehicle was built – and is thus often the most reliable piece of origin information on the whole vehicle.
The builder's plate beats the group name
Groups merge, builder's plates stay fitted. Anyone who finds a plate from Hennigsdorf or Görlitz knows the vehicle's origin and year of construction – regardless of what the manufacturer is called today.
The product families and their features
| Family | Vehicle type | Feature at a distance | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| TRAXX | four-axle locomotive | straight body, angled front, high roof edge | Bombardier TRAXX |
| Talent | diesel railcar | short, compact, articulated car bodies | Class 644 |
| Talent 2 | electric multiple unit | angular, strongly structured nose | Class 442 / 443 |
| Twindexx | double-deck vehicle | angled transition between the levels | Twindexx Vario |
| Flexity | tram | low-floor car with a city-specific front | NGT6DD Dresden |
TRAXX is the case with the biggest gap between appearance and reality. Externally the variants are barely distinguishable, but technically worlds apart: AC only, multi-system, diesel, and different country approvals. The Dutch offshoot, the NS TRAXX BR 186, also belongs to the same family.
Determine the vehicle type
Locomotive with coaches, multiple unit, or tram? This rough classification already does most of the work.
Compare the front
Angular and strongly structured points to Talent 2, rounded more towards competitor products. On locomotives, the roof edge counts.
Look for the builder's plate
On the side of the car body or on the frame. It states the plant and year of construction – and so the actual origin.
Note the full number
Only the complete vehicle number reliably separates the TRAXX variants from one another.
Is this really a Bombardier type?
Builder's plate and number together make the identification durable for good.
Keep TRAXX variants apart
With the Traintrack app you log the number and operator before the train has moved on.
Where the vehicles run today
The company name has vanished, the vehicles have not – and they’re spread across very different operators. In freight traffic, TRAXX locomotives are in use across Europe, both with state-railway subsidiaries such as DB Cargo and with private providers and leasing companies. On international corridors you can see them in close succession at Emmerich am Rhein.
In regional traffic the spread is even wider. Talent and Twindexx vehicles run for DB Regio as well as for competitors such as eurobahn or National Express. Because the livery is usually specified by the transport authority, two identical trains can end up looking completely different.
One side effect of the long production run: older types move on to smaller railways after being withdrawn by large operators. That keeps vehicles in the picture that vanished from their original area of operation long ago – a good reason not to overlook branch lines and smaller operators.
Urban transport is part of it too. Trams of the Flexity family run in several German cities, each with its own front design on the same technical base. Anyone collecting main-line and local transport on the same day can easily document three or four vehicle families from the same manufacturer origin in a single big city – from the double-deck train through the regional multiple unit to the low-floor tram.
How to deal with a name that’s disappeared
A Bombardier type if …
- the builder's plate names a plant of the group and a year of construction before 2021
- the body shape clearly matches one of the well-known families
- the class number belongs to a documented series
Take a closer look if …
- a vehicle was built after 2021 but is based on an older platform
- the product line went to a competitor under the takeover conditions
- a transport-authority livery covers up all manufacturer markings
A different manufacturer if …
- the multiple unit has a deep, wraparound front windscreen
- a locomotive shows the typical roof edge of the Vectron family
- the builder's plate names an unrelated plant
In practice this means: note the type in your logbook, not the group. Whether a vehicle is assigned to Alstom today or was Bombardier yesterday changes nothing about what you actually saw – and classes outlive mergers. How to identify systematically is covered in the guide to identifying classes.
Old sources aren't wrong, just outdated
Articles and databases from before 2021 still list Bombardier as the current manufacturer. That was correct at the time of publication and is out of date today. Always check the date of a source's manufacturer information before copying it into your own list.
Conclusion
Bombardier Transportation is the textbook case for the fact that company names in the rail sector have a shorter half-life than the vehicles built under them. The brand has been history since 2021, while the products go on shaping European traffic – and will keep doing so for decades yet, given typical vehicle service lives.
For you at the lineside, the simple rule stands: identify the type, read the builder’s plate, note the number. That keeps your sighting correct even when the next corporate reshuffle comes around – and in the rail sector, it certainly will. The name on the vehicle’s flank was never the reliable piece of information anyway; what’s reliable is what’s stamped, bolted or stuck on and accompanies a vehicle for its entire service life.
In short
The manufacturer was absorbed into Alstom in 2021, and the product families continue there. On the vehicle, the group name won't help you – the builder's plate and the body shape will.
An archive that survives the next corporate reshuffle
Type and vehicle number instead of company name – so your sightings are still usable in ten years' time.
Summary
- The case is a textbook example of how quickly company names disappear in the rail sector while the vehicles keep running for decades.
- Anyone who can reliably identify TRAXX and Talent covers a substantial share of German freight and regional traffic.
- The Alstom takeover came with conditions attached – individual product lines and sites went to a competitor.
- For sighting lists: manufacturer information from before 2021 isn't wrong, just no longer current. The type remains the stable point of reference.
Frequently asked questions
Does Bombardier Transportation still exist?
No. The company was taken over by Alstom in 2021 and absorbed into it. The name has since been disappearing step by step from vehicles and documents. The product families continue at Alstom, in some cases under new designations.
What is a TRAXX?
A platform for four-axle locomotives that has shaped European freight traffic for two decades. It exists as a pure AC machine, a multi-system locomotive and a diesel locomotive, each with different country approvals. The collective entry is at Bombardier TRAXX, the Dutch variant at NS TRAXX BR 186.
How do I tell Talent and Talent 2 apart?
They are two different vehicles with a similar name. The original Talent, Class 643, is a compact diesel railcar. The Talent 2, Class 442/443, is a substantially larger electric multiple unit with an angular front. The detailed features are covered in the article Telling FLIRT, Talent and Desiro apart.
What happened to the German plants?
They now belong to Alstom. Hennigsdorf, Görlitz, Bautzen and Mannheim represent vehicle-building traditions that go back well before Bombardier – Görlitz, for instance, for double-deck coach construction. As a condition of the takeover, however, sites and product lines had to be sold off, including to the Spanish manufacturer CAF.
What was Adtranz?
The direct predecessor. Adtranz was formed in the 1990s from the rail divisions of several large groups and, in the process, also absorbed the East German wagon-building works. Bombardier bought the company in 2001. That's why older vehicles carry builder's plates with names nobody recognises today – one example is the DWA LVT/S.
Does Bombardier run its own trains?
No, and that was true even before the takeover. Manufacturers deliver vehicles; they're operated by railway undertakings such as metronom or DB Cargo. Any running the manufacturer itself did was limited to transfer runs and test runs, and even those were carried out via commissioned operators.
Why do two TRAXX locomotives look so different?
Because the platform spans several generations and electrification systems. There are pure AC machines, multi-system locomotives and diesel variants, plus different approvals for individual countries. Externally they often differ only in details such as pantographs and markings – without the UIC number the variant is hard to pin down.
Where do I see particularly many of these vehicles?
On the freight corridors and at major hubs. At Emmerich am Rhein, international freight trains with multi-system locomotives converge, while at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof you see double-deck and regional traffic of this origin at a dense pace.
Are Flexity trams also Bombardier?
Yes, the Flexity family comes from the same stable. In Berlin the Flexity Berlin runs, in Dresden vehicles such as the NGT6DD. How to classify tram types in general is explained in the article Identifying tram types.
Do I need to rewrite old sightings now?
No. A sighting documents a state at a point in time, and that doesn't change retroactively. All that makes sense going forward is using the type as your point of reference rather than the manufacturer's name – types survive company takeovers, company names don't.
Log vehicles from Bombardier Transportation
Company, vehicle, location and date logged in seconds – and visible to the community.
The operational level in the railway operator database
Who actually runs the trains, with keeper markings and identifying features on the vehicle.
Metronom Eisenbahngesellschaft mbH
Metronom Eisenbahngesellschaft operates regional services in northern Germany. This page shows the recognition features and explains how dispatching works during disruptions.
FreightDB Cargo Deutschland AG
DB Cargo is Deutsche Bahn's freight division and Germany's largest freight railway. You can spot it straight away by the keeper marking D-DB and its traffic-red livery.
Local & regionalDB Regio AG
DB Regio is Deutsche Bahn's local rail division. The group organises regional services regionally – which is why the brand on the train and the keeper marking on the vehicle often don't match.
Local & regionalEurobahn (ERB)
Eurobahn operates regional services in north-west Germany. This page shows how to record multiple-unit trains correctly – one unit, but several numbers.
Local & regionalNational Express Rail GmbH
National Express Rail GmbH belongs to an internationally active transport group whose roots lie in the bus and coach business. The name "Rail" marks exactly this step onto the railway.
Local & regionalOstdeutsche Eisenbahn GmbH (ODEG)
Ostdeutsche Eisenbahn GmbH (ODEG) is a regional passenger operator. Door layout, floor height and interior layout tell you more about the train than any livery.
Typical vehicles
Bombardier TRAXX
TRAXX isn't a single class but a platform: the same base locomotive in many variants. Here's how to decode the type designations and identify the family.
ClassBombardier Talent 2 / 3 (Class 442 / 443)
The Talent 2 is hard to miss thanks to its bulging front end – it's earned the nickname hamster cheeks. Here's how to reliably identify it and the Talent 3.
ClassClass 644 (Bombardier Talent)
Class 644 is the three-part Bombardier Talent with diesel-electric transmission. Visually almost identical to the 643 – the vehicle number is what settles it.
ClassBombardier Twindexx Vario
Twindexx Vario refers to the double-deck coaches used in locomotive-hauled push-pull trains. Here's how to tell them apart from a multiple unit and read the formation correctly.
ClassBombardier Flexity Berlin (GT6-12 ZRL)
The Flexity Berlin is BVG's modern low-floor tram. The type code GT6-12 ZRL reveals almost everything – once you know how to read it.
ClassNS TRAXX (Class 186)
NS runs TRAXX Class 186 locomotives on cross-border services. What the type code means and how to identify the multi-system locomotive.
Where you will find Bombardier Transportation
Spotting locations where you will regularly come across vehicles from this organisation – with viewpoints, the best light and coordinates.
Emmerich am Rhein
At Emmerich, freight traffic from the Ruhr region leaves Germany towards Rotterdam – and vice versa. The system changeover at the border, the connection to the Betuweroute and an exceptionally high freight share make this one of the country's most important border spots.
Junction stationHamburg Hauptbahnhof
Hamburg Hauptbahnhof funnels the whole of Germany's north-south traffic, plus the route to Scandinavia, onto a handful of tracks. That makes it one of the most rewarding spots in the country – and one of the most uncomfortable. Plan around the crowding and you get a hit rate here that hardly any other station can match.
Junction stationKöln Hauptbahnhof
Few stations in Europe pack so much traffic into so little space: over 1,200 train movements a day, eleven platform tracks, and the Hohenzollern Bridge starting right behind the platform ends. Get Köln Hbf right, and you'll have more in the bag after two hours than elsewhere in a whole day.
Junction stationBerlin Ostkreuz
At Ostkreuz, the ring line and the Stadtbahn cross on two levels, one above the other – plus regional trains towards Brandenburg and an S-Bahn service that practically never stops. For spotters, this is Berlin's most productive local-traffic spot, and unlike at the Hauptbahnhof, daylight reaches everywhere here.
More companies
Alstom
After taking over Bombardier Transportation, Alstom is Europe's broadest vehicle manufacturer. Diesel railcars, freight locomotives, trams – much of it comes from the same house, recognisable not by the logo but by the platform names and their body styles.
ManufacturerSiemens Mobility
Siemens Mobility doesn't build individual vehicles, it builds platforms: a Vectron in Sweden and one in Slovenia are the same machine with different equipment. Anyone who understands the platform logic can recognise the vehicles even when the livery gives nothing away.
ManufacturerStadler Rail
Stadler Rail grew from a small workshop in Thurgau into one of Europe's defining vehicle builders. The product names FLIRT, KISS and GTW appear nowhere on the vehicle – yet you can still identify the matching designs from a great distance once you know what to look for.
ManufacturerCAF Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles
CAF is the big Spanish vehicle manufacturer that outside Spain is mostly seen as a tram builder. The Urbos family runs in half of Europe, and the Civity multiple units are now reaching German regional services too. Both have a recognisable style.
Related guides from the blog
- FLIRT, Talent, Desiro & Co.: Telling Regional Multiple Units Apart
- Identifying Train Classes: How to Recognise Any Locomotive or Multiple Unit
- Reading the UIC number: what the 12 digits on a vehicle reveal
- Advertising Locomotives and Special Liveries: How to Track Down Current Vehicles
- Identify Tram Types: Combino, Flexity, Avenio, Variobahn
