ON TRACK SINCE THREE
GENERATIONS.

Dipl. engineer Max Knape founded the company in 1929 with a focus on civil engineering, bridge building and railway construction. He placed special attention on the first attempts at mechanization of track construction. The purchase and deployment of the first cleaning machine in the railway network of the German national railway in 1932 set a landmark on the road to development of mo-
dern track construction.

In 1958, mechanization of track construction started with the development and the production of the ballast cleaning machine »System KNAPE« (DP 1796265). Following the death of enterprise founder Max Knape in 1968 his son, Dipl. engineer Fritz Knape took over the management of the entire enter­prise.

The first rail replacement device »Paganelli«, with supplementary add-ons for the continuous replacement of both railway tracks (system patent Knape) was used in 1974, followed by the first track formation improvement machine PM 200 in 1983. In the same year, Max Knape Gleisbau the »Material Conveyor and Silo Unit« (MFS 40).

From 1998 to 2000, the Knape group participated in the development of the ballastless track system Rheda 2000 and the matching straightening process. It holds numerous patents to this system.

In 1999, the German-Dutch joint-venture of Eurailscout was founded and commissioned the first ever multi­functional high-capacity test train, UFM 120. 2001 saw the incorporation of the Eurailpool company, a German Austrian joint-venture in which the substrate rehabilitation machines PM 200-1, PM 200-2 and AHM as well as all MFS are being bundled up.

The Group became a stakeholder in 2010 in the new-founded OWS GmbH, a large-scale workshop for railway vehicles in Weiden.

The most state of the art substrate rehabilitation machine, PM 1000 URM, by Eurailpool was commissioned in the same year. Also, the mobile shunt measuring system SIM was developed.

In 2011, Eurailscout expanded its ultrasonic fleet by the two-way vehicle RIT 11. A method for mechanical new construction of railway track sections, which can be used even without a rail link, is patented and in development since 2012.