Dellner Completes DAC Testing Ahead of InnoTrans

Just weeks before InnoTrans, Dellner announced that it had completed the development and testing of its digital automatic coupler, including its electrical and digital components. Wabtec, which completed its acquisition of Dellner in February, says it can now offer the market a complete in-house DAC solution.

Wabtec began the acquisition of Swedish company Dellner Couplers last year, which RAILTARGET previously reported on. According to Wabtec, the transaction was completed on 11 February 2026. Dellner has around 100,000 conventional couplers installed on railway vehicles and provides manufacturing, assembly and service operations in 13 countries. The company says it has contracts with more than 200 customers.

Wabtec Sees DAC as a Basis for Wider Rail Digitalisation

Dellner, and now Wabtec, has been developing and testing the coupler through the European TRANS4M-R programme funded by Europe’s Rail. Daniel Gradl, Wabtec’s Director of DAC and Brake Systems, told Global Railway Review that digitalisation will give rail freight the momentum it has so far been missing.

According to Gradl, rail freight is facing a number of structural challenges. Infrastructure is ageing, there is growing pressure to shift freight away from roads, yet costs remain relatively high for rail. Digitalisation and automation have now reached a level of maturity that could help the sector address many of these problems.

Along with the digital automatic coupler, Wabtec is developing other solutions to make rail freight more cost-efficient, faster and more competitive. These include automated train formation, automated shunting, automatic brake testing and improved data sharing. Gradl says the challenge now is to align technological readiness with a strong regulatory framework and sufficient political support. Rail is a highly interconnected system, meaning that scaling digital solutions depends on common standards and coordinated investment.

"DAC is not just an incremental improvement, but a prerequisite for scaling broader digital processes across the network," Gradl said.

“Every day, roughly half a million coupling operations take place in Europe alone, making coupling foundational to freight. Traditional manual coupling is time-intensive, physically demanding and often carried out in poor visibility and adverse weather, placing staff between wagons in hazardous conditions," he added.

"With DAC, we can couple wagons without human intervention through integrated mechanical, electrical and digital connections. This makes the process safer and more productive, and the job more attractive. Train formation becomes faster, and dwell time in yards drops.”

He added that Wabtec is drawing on its experience in telematics and cybersecurity, and on knowledge from other markets where the company operates, including the United States, where freight wagon coupling is already automated.

AI and Telematics Could Change Freight Terminal Operations

At terminals, Wabtec is moving towards automated shunting and remote locomotive control. AI-assisted remote operation could help coordinate wagon movements, reduce waiting times and make better use of limited terminal and transhipment capacity.

Integrated wagon telematics, track monitoring systems and a central operating platform are intended to enable continuous safety checks and automatically identify maintenance requirements in order to reduce manual processes and make train operations more predictable.

Transport companies would also gain a real-time overview of wagon locations, mileage and safety conditions. Better data management could support smarter maintenance, more efficient fleet rotation and faster responses to incidents. Another potential benefit is a reduction in the number of wagons that are effectively lost within the network.

For shippers, telematics could provide full shipment visibility, more accurate estimated transport times and better handling of sensitive or dangerous goods. Combined with information about the rail network and yards on central data platforms, these wagon-level data flows could support decision-making tools, operational dashboards and freight optimisation increasingly managed with the help of artificial intelligence.