Shipping giant MSC has recently taken over a site near the port of Trieste, in northeastern Italy, and is reconverting it into a rolling stock manufacturing plant in cooperation with Innofreight. Now, there is also a date for when the first wagons should be rolling out of the facility: 2 July 2025.
The news was shared by the two companies, which joined forces by creating Innoway Trieste. The two partners unveiled their plan to reconvert the site, located in Bagnoli della Rosandra, to the Friuli Venezia Giulia region. The first product type which will be produced will be a double-bogie 80-feet wagon. Other than wagons, the plan is to manufacture rail bogies as well, with the new Innobogie being the flagship product.
Innoway Trieste is expected to be at full regime by 2027. By then, 3,000 wagons and 1,000 bogies should be manufactured every year. Other than reconverting the facility in Bagnoli della Rosandra, there is the need to connect it to the main railway network. For this, the Friuli Venezia Region already pledged an investment of 15 million euros. The goal of Innoway Trieste remains significantly ambitious, as they claimed they want “ to become the first site in Europe for the production of highly technological wagons for freight transport”.
MSC’s takeover of Wärtsila site
The site in Bagnoli della Rosandra used to be the home of Wärtsila, a Finnish company producing ship engines. The company decided to bring its production back to Finland in 2022, with the risk of having over 250 people losing their jobs. MSC proposed to take over the plant in February, with the Finnish company selling its assets in Trieste to the Swiss shipping giant in August. With the establishment of Innoway Trieste, MSC claims that it will reabsorb all of the former Wärtsila workers by 2027.