Stadler

Stadler goes back to October 1942, when Ernst Stadler opened an engineering office in Zurich. In 1989 Peter Spuhler bought the company, then 18 people, and built it into one of the world's largest makers of rail vehicles; it is headquartered in Bussnang and has been listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange since 2019.

It builds high-speed, intercity, regional and metro trains, trams and locomotives - the FLIRT, KISS, SMILE and TINA families among them, including battery and hydrogen trains - and is the only maker of rack-and-pinion railway vehicles.

Software matters more every year: Stadler Signalling, with sites in Switzerland, Germany and Atlanta, develops ETCS train protection, interlockings and CBTC for driverless metros, and in 2026 Stadler and Critical Software opened Stadler Digital Labs in Coimbra for railway software and cybersecurity.