Newag S.A. (pronounced ''"nevag"'') is a Polish company, based in

Nowy Sącz Nowy Sącz (; ; ; ; ) is a city in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship of southern Poland. It is the district capital of Nowy Sącz County as a separate administrative unit. With a population of 83,116 as of 2021, it is the largest city in the Beskid S ...

, specialising in the production, maintenance, and modernisation of railway

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, Railroad car#Freight cars, freight and Passenger railroad car, passenger cars (or coaches) ...

. The company's products include the

14WE 14WE (original project names ''EN57/M'' and ''Halny''; one unit also called EN61 mainly used for "papal train" excursion services) is an electric multiple unit (EMU) produced by Newag in Nowy Sącz, Poland. They are essentially heavily reconstruct ...

, 19WE, 35WE types

electric multiple unit An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a number o ...

s. The company has also developed the

Nevelo The Nevelo is a tram designed by Newag and built in its Nowy Sącz factory. History In May 2013, the first complete tram was taken to Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-l ...

prototype tram and formed a consortium with

Siemens Mobility Siemens Mobility GmbH is a division of Siemens. With its global headquarters in Munich, Siemens Mobility has four core business units: Mobility Management, dedicated to rail technology and intelligent traffic systems, Railway Electrification, ...

for final assembly of

Siemens Inspiro The Siemens Inspiro is a family of electric multiple unit trains designed and manufactured by Siemens Mobility since 2012 for Rapid transit, metro systems. The product was launched on 19 September 2012 at the InnoTrans in Berlin. The first Inspi ...

metro trains for the

Warsaw Metro The Warsaw Metro () is a rapid transit underground system serving the Poland, Polish capital Warsaw. It currently consists of two lines, the north–south M1 (Warsaw), M1 line which links central Warsaw with its densely populated northern and sou ...

and

Sofia Metro The Sofia Metro (, also colloquially called ) is the rapid transit network servicing the Bulgarian capital city Sofia. It is the only metro in Bulgaria. It began operation on 28 January 1998. , the Sofia Metro consists of four interconnected lin ...

History

In 1876 (when Nowy Sącz was partitioned by

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

), the

Imperial–Royal The adjective (usually abbreviated to ), German for imperial–royal, was applied to the authorities and state institutions of the Austrian Empire until the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, which established the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Ther ...

Railway Workshops opened, serving the newly built . After the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and the establishment of the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 7 October 1918 and 6 October 1939. The state was established in the final stage of World War I ...

, the company, renamed "1st Class Main Workshop", was redirected to serve

Polish State Railways The Polish State Railways ( , abbr.: PKP S.A.) is a Polish state-owned holding company (legally a sole-shareholder company of the State Treasury) comprising the rail transport holdings of the country's formerly dominant namesake railway oper ...

(PKP), employing some 1,800 workers in 1922. In post-World War II communist Poland the workshop was nationalised and later became a separate, though still state-owned, enterprise officially called "Nowy Sacz Railway Rolling Stock Repairs Depot in Nowy Sacz, State Independent Enterprise" (), with a workforce of about 3,500 in 1952. ZNTK Nowy Sącz serviced its last steam locomotive (a TKt48) in 1972. After the fall of communism and the economic changes of 1989, ZNTK Nowy Sącz was transformed into a State Treasury Joint Stock Company, with the Polish state as the only shareholder. The company went through a period of financial turmoil around 2001 and its shares were acquired by a private domestic investor in 2003. The current name was adopted in 2005. In 2008, Newag acquired ZNTK Gilwice and subsequently integrated the latter's operations into the wider company. In 2012, the first

from the 35WE series belonging to the

Newag Impuls Newag Impuls is a family of Standard-gauge railway, standard-gauge Electric multiple unit, electric, Diesel multiple unit, diesel and Electro-diesel multiple unit, bi-mode (''hybrid'') multiple units manufactured by Polish railway rolling stock m ...

family of trains was produced. In 2013, the 31WE Impuls train achieved the speed of 211.6 kph on the Central Rail Line (CMK) setting a new record for a train designed and manufactured entirely in Poland. In December 2013, the company made its debut on the

Warsaw Stock Exchange The Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) () is a stock exchange in Warsaw, Poland. Founded in 1817, it was located in the Saxon Palace until 1877 when it was moved to the Exchange Building at the Saxon Garden. Currently, it is located at ul. Książęca ...

with 43.47% of the company's shares having been sold. In May 2024, the company secured a PLN 2.7 billion (EUR 740 million) contract with

PKP Intercity PKP Intercity is the subsidiary of the PKP Group responsible for long-distance rail passenger transport in Poland. It operates around 350 trains daily, connecting large agglomerations and smaller towns in Poland. It offers its services under ...

, which aims to diversify its rolling stock, for the delivery of 35 hybrid dual-mode multiple units.

Test track

The company has set up an electrified, 245 metre long test track to test the electric rolling stock it manufactures or modernises. The overhead can be supplied with any of the four systems, commonly used on European railways: 1.5 and 3 kV DC, 15 kV 16.7 Hz and 25 kV 50 Hz.

2023 revelation of software sabotage

At the ''OhMyH@ck'' conference held in Warsaw on 5 December 2023, software engineers from white hat

hacker group Hacker groups are informal communities that began to flourish in the early 1980s, with the advent of the home computer. Overview Prior to that time, the term ''hacker'' was simply a referral to any Hacker (hobbyist), computer hobbyist. The hacker ...

Dragon Sector revealed that they had

reverse engineered Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompl ...

the

embedded software Embedded software is computer software, written to control machines or devices that are not typically thought of as computers, commonly known as embedded systems. It is typically specialized for the particular hardware that it runs on and has tim ...

of Newag 45WE Impuls EMUs after operator

Koleje Dolnośląskie Koleje Dolnośląskie ( Polish for ''Lower Silesian Railways''; KD) is a regional rail operator in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship of Poland. The company was founded on 28 December 2007 by a decision of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship Sejmik and i ...

had experienced a number of mysterious breakdowns when maintenance was performed by their selected contractor Serwis Pojazdów Szynowych (SPS). In Newag's opinion, the issues were a result of

malpractice In the law of torts, malpractice, also known as professional negligence, is an "instance of negligence or incompetence on the part of a professional".Malpractice definition, Professionals who may become the subject of malpractice actions inc ...

by SPS and the trains should have instead been serviced by Newag. Analysis of the software revealed that the train's embedded computers were programmed to lock up and display bogus fault messages and prevent the train from running if a GPS tracker detected that it spent a certain number of days in an independent repair company’s maintenance center, and also if certain replacement parts had a serial number not approved by the manufacturer. In an investigation conducted with the help of the and

CERT Polska CERT Polska is Computer Emergency Response Team which operates within the structures of Naukowa i Akademicka Sieć Komputerowa (Scientific and Academic Computer Network or NASK) – a research institute which conducts scientific activity, operates t ...

, it was also discovered that the software locks could be bypassed by pressing a sequence of buttons in the cab of the train, although a later

software update A patch is data that is intended to be used to modify an existing software resource such as a program or a file, often to fix bugs and security vulnerabilities. A patch may be created to improve functionality, usability, or performance. A pa ...

removed this ability. The Dragon Sector group analysed 29 trains belonging to Koleje Dolnośląskie as well as other affected operators such as

Koleje Mazowieckie Masovian Railways, in Polish Koleje Mazowieckie, is a regional rail operator in the Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. History The company was founded in 2004 as a joint venture of the Masovian Voivodeship, with 51% shares, and the then governmen ...

, SKM Warszawa, WKD and

Polregio Polregio (formerly ''Przewozy Regionalne'') is a train operator in Poland, responsible for local and interregional passenger transportation. Each day it runs approximately 3,000 regional trains. In 2002 it carried 215 million passengers. T ...

, 24 of which had software locks which were removed using tools developed by the group. After those findings were made public, former Minister of Digital Affairs

Janusz Cieszyński Janusz Antoni Cieszyński (born ) is a Polish politician who was Minister of Digital Affairs under Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in his second cabinet since . Early life and education Janusz Cieszyński was born on in Wrocław, Polan ...

confirmed the Polish government and Polish intelligence agencies had known about the findings since May. It was also revealed that the Polish Internal Security Agency (ABW) had, in October 2022, submitted a case against Newag regarding the abovementioned software manipulation incidents to the prosecutor's office in Nowy Sącz, which initially downplayed the incident until said findings publicly came to light, after which, the investigation was taken over by the regional prosecutor's office in Kraków on suspicion of crimes committed under Article 269 §1 and Article 286 §1 of the

Polish Penal Code ''Kodeks Karny'' is Poland's criminal-law code. The name is often abbreviated ''KK''. Modern Polish legal history has seen the introduction of three penal codes: in 1932; in 1969, during the communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, p ...

. Newag strongly denied the claims they intentionally disabled their software and instead alleged SPS was propagating a conspiracy theory to avoid contractual penalties for being unable to service the trains. Newag also claimed there is no proof they are the author of the software or that the modifications had been introduced by them. Newag stated it would take legal action against SPS and the Dragon Sector group for slander and defamation. The Dragon Sector hacker group subsequently gave a presentation at the 37th

Chaos Communication Congress The Chaos Communication Congress is an annual hacker conference organized by the Chaos Computer Club. The congress features a variety of lectures and workshops on technical and political issues related to security, cryptography, privacy and ...

(37C3) in Hamburg on 27 December 2023, where they explained in detail the process of debugging the train software and their findings. The

Sejm The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...

's Parliamentary Committee for Combating Transport Exclusion subsequently convened three hearings regarding the abovementioned allegations on 17 January, 27 February and 26 March 2024, whose participants included representatives of the Dragon Sector team, Newag, railway operators and members of the Sejm. Newag has since filed a lawsuit for

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...

against Dragon Sector and SPS. The first hearing was held by the District Court in Warsaw on 28 August 2024.

Current products

– three-section low-floor tramcar, currently in service in Kraków * Impuls – electric multiple unit for urban, suburban or regional services *

Vulcano Vulcano () or Vulcan is a small volcanic island belonging to Italy in the Tyrrhenian Sea, about north of Sicily and located at the southernmost end of the seven Aeolian Islands. The island is known for its volcanic activity and contains severa ...

– diesel multiple unit, currently in service in Italy *

Griffin The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (; Classical Latin: ''gryps'' or ''grypus''; Late and Medieval Latin: ''gryphes'', ''grypho'' etc.; Old French: ''griffon'') is a -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk ...

– four-axle electric or diesel-electric locomotive for express passenger and light-medium freight services *

Dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

– six-axle high-power electric or diesel-electric locomotive for heavy freight services Locomotives and EMU are available with optional last-mile diesel.

Production history

References

External links

* {{authority control Rail vehicle manufacturers of Poland Locomotive manufacturers of Poland Polish brands Railway test tracks Companies established in 1876 1876 establishments in Austria-Hungary