Updates from Invensys, Axion and XL Insurance

• Invensys Rail has obtained a contract to install a resignaling system at London Bridge Station and an approaching railway. The overarching contract, under which there will be a series of individual contracts, will begin in August and run through the completion of the Thameslink project in December 2018. Invensys will design, install, test and commission the signaling and telecom systems. Meanwhile, Invensys Rail also completed the last phase of Auckland’s commuter-rail system upgrade in time for this year’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. The Auckland project involved the first installation of Invensys Rail’s next generation WESTRACE MkII interlocking, according to the company.

• Axion International has signed a nonbinding letter of intent with Sicut Holding Ltd. to establish a global joint venture, Axion Rail L.L.C., to manufacture and sell recycled structural composite crossties. Axion Rail will be 65 percent owned by Axion International and 35 percent owned by Sicut. “This joint venture will be an enormous acceleration of Axion’s business model with long-term benefit to our corporate growth strategy,” said Axion President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Silverman in a prepared statement.

• Yesterday, XL Insurance, the global underwriting operations of XL Group, launched a new railroad underwriting team with the appointments of Denise DePrimo to senior vice president and Michael Margiotta, to vice president. DePrimo will lead XL Insurance’s railroad casualty underwriting activities from New York City. She joins XL from Zurich North America, where she led the railroad underwriting team. Before her 16-year tenure at Zurich, she spent five years in railroad insurance at Continental Insurance Co. Margiotta will be responsible for establishing railroad underwriting capabilities in XL’s Baltimore office. He most recently was vice president in Zurich’s railroad unit in Owings Mills, Md.