Rainer Kogelheide is leaving GATX in order to immediately become more intensely involved with national and international Association work. The managing director has guided GATX through 25 years of eventful history – and was significantly involved in developing the business into a recognized internationally active rental company with one of the youngest fleets throughout the whole of Europe.

In 1980, Rainer Kogelheide had his first point of contact with what is a present-day subsidiary of GATX Rail Germany GmbH – Jungenthal Waggon. The graduate engineer visited the company on behalf of TÜV Hannover: “I would never have thought that I would one day be the Managing Director here!” But at the start of the 1990s he had a second encounter: As a TÜV employee, Rainer Kogelheide was to assess the tank wagons bought by the rental company KVG Kesselwagen Vermietgesellschaft from the former German Democratic Republic National Railways “Deutsche Reichsbahn”. During this work he got to know Rainer Baumgarten, the then co-owner and Hamburg-based managing director of KVG. He recognized the potential of the TÜV man and offered him a new job.

MANY CHALLENGES, EVEN MORE KILOMETRES
So from 1993 Rainer Kogelheide worked for KVG Kesselwagen Vermietgesellschaft (today, GATX Rail Germany GmbH): As a project manager he was responsible for new construction and the maintenance of the fleet. Right in his first working week he was posted to Romania, where he ensured that the tank wagons built there were delivered in top quality. In those days he was used to travelling – only after his move with his family to Hamburg in 1995 did he sit behind the steering wheel for less than 70,000 km per year.

At the end of the last century, Rainer Kogelheide supervised the first new-builds by the company Graaff and provided support from the technical point of view for the acquisition of DEC. From 2001 he was then Chief Technical Officer and a member of the management team of GATX Rail Europe, responsible for production and the compliance with technical standards as well as the quality requirements and safety regulations. With his work he supported the development and liberalization of an entire industry.

A VERY SPECIAL CAREER
To this day, Rainer Kogelheide is still active in the Verband der Güterwagenhalter in Deutschland e. V. (VPI) (Association of Private Wagon Keepers in Germany) and carries out important association work. In addition, as Chairman of the RID Working-Group “Tank and Vehicle Technology” he developed the master rules for the Europe-wide transport of hazardous goods. One of the peaks in his career was the award of the German Hazardous Goods Prize for rail freight transport with which the proven specialist was honoured in 2015.

Rainer Kogelheide sums up his time at GATX so “GATX has had an impressive development: From a company that took over the GDR state railway fleet and had to first find itself, right up to a recognized internationally active rental company with one of the youngest fleets throughout the whole of Europe! I am convinced that the employees will carry on with the same excitement and the energy of the last few years!”

But Rainer Kogelheide will stay connected to GATX: Thanks to his great passion for the association work, he will immediately work even more intensively on the standardization in, and the setting of rules for our industry. But when he does have spare time, there are still three grandchildren, an allotment, a motorcycle and an inherited former farmyard. He will certainly not be bored!

We thank Rainer for his countless contributions to our success and wish him a lot of fun and satisfaction in the next phase of his life.

At GATX Rail Europe, Johann Feindert, COO of GATX Rail Europe, will immediately take over the subject areas for which Rainer Kogelheide was responsible.