Rolling forward — stronger than ever
What is today SweMaint traces its origins to a network of workshops established by the Swedish State Railways (SJ) in the mid-nineteenth century. As a result, most of our current workshops have played an important role in the development of the railway industry and have held historical significance in their respective regions.
During the period of deregulation and privatisation in the 1980s, the workshop network was divided into two parts — one in the north and one in the south. The southern part was converted into a commercial company and named “SweMaint AB”.
SweMaint AB was subsequently divested to ASEA, later ABB, before being sold back to the state a few years later.
As part of the deregulation, SweMaint purchased all replacement wheels from the state-owned rail freight company and established a successful “wheel pool” that remains an important part of the business today. SweMaint’s wheel pool is based on an exchange system for wheelsets, reducing capital requirements while ensuring the supply of high-quality replacement wheels.
In the early 2000s, SweMaint acquired the competitors Chr Olsson AB and Gävle Godsvagnsservice AB, before being acquired by K Group AB in 2007. The company became a sister company of Kockums Industrier, then Northern Europe’s leading manufacturer of specialised freight wagons, with a history in the railway industry that closely mirrors our own. SweMaint AB is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Kockums Industrier.
