History & Milestones

Establishment of Furrer+Frey in Bern by Emil Furrer and Arnold Frey as a general partnership, with areas of activity including electrical supply lines for larger power plants and overhead contact line and power line construction.

Development of the Type 1 Cantilever and inclined overhead contact line, and installation on the Visp–Zermatt railway in collaboration with a partner company.

Development and construction of the first overhead contact line on Belgium’s Brussels–Tervueren line.

Hans Jörg Furrer takes over the company as the 2nd generation.

Start of the overhead contact line material manufacture, and closure of the power lines business.

Development of the overhead contact line system for large conductor profiles as part of the upgrade of the BLS mountain section to double track.

Development of the rigid overhead contact line system (ROCS) and construction of its pilot installation in Zurich-Opfikon.

Beat Furrer takes over the company as the 3rd generation.

Development of the computer-aided overhead contact line condition recording system “auscultation”.

Expansion of the international market with the sale of conductor rail material for around 32 kilometres to Korea National Railway.

Planning of the overhead contact line system for the BLS railway station in Spiez and construction of the first portal booms with a span of more than 50 metres.

Development, planning and construction of the FL 200T overhead contact line for the Zimmerberg Base Tunnel, SBB’s first high-speed line.

Delivery of the first conductor rails to China and Taiwan. In the same year, start of the development of an overhead contact line measurement device, the Dynamic Catenary Monitoring (DCM) system.

Our FL 200 and FL 200T overhead contact line systems become the standard for various Swiss private railways.

Receipt of approval for the urban rail overhead contact line system FL 100. Together with a partner, further development of our 2D planning tool to create the 3D tool ELFF.

Certification of our rigid overhead contact line system (ROCS) for 220 km/h by the certification body EisenbahnCert (EBC).

Establishment of our first subsidiary in Rome, Italy.

Development of the GEFF overhead contact line system for the UK’s Network Rail. Presentation of the first LED lower pantograph signals to visitors at InnoTrans in Berlin, Germany.

Structural design, planning, delivery and installation of two 56-metre-long portal booms in Mannheim, Germany.

Development and construction of fast-charging stations for hybrid and electric buses together with the Swedish company Opbrid.

Development of the new Series 1 overhead contact line system for the UK’s Network Rail.

Establishment of subsidiaries in London (UK) and Guangzhou (China), as well as opening of our first branch in French-speaking Switzerland.

Approval of our rigid overhead conductor rail system for speeds of up to 250 km/h in Austria by the Austrian BMVIT (now BMK).

Opening of a branch in Zurich.

Testing of our rigid overhead contact line system (ROCS) at 302 km/h for the first time in Austria’s Sittenberg Tunnel – a world record!

Opening of our branch in Bellinzona, and establishment of another subsidiary in Berlin, Germany. Acquisition of the company Opbrid for the further development of All-In-One charging stations based on the OppCharge industry standard.

Rico Furrer takes over the company as the 4th generation.

Assembly of the first FL 200 light aluminium cantilevers for the Tyne and Wear Metro in the greater Newcastle area (UK),

and start of the development of a fast-charging station for battery trains together with Stadtwerke Tübingen.

Installation of our rigid overhead contact line system (ROCS) for 250 km/h in the two single-track tunnels of the Ceneri Base Tunnel.

Development and construction of the first OppCharge ZFP depot charging system for e-buses, based on our AIO fast-charging stations. Commissioning of the first VOLTAP BEMU fast-charging station near Tübingen, Germany.

Establishment of our subsidiary in New Delhi, India.

Our e-mobility team wins the tender for depot-charging infrastructure at RVBW in Baden-Wettingen together with EvoBus Switzerland.

Nomination of our VOLTAP fast-charging station and the FLIRT battery train from STADLER for the German Sustainability Award in the Design category.

Together with Stadtwerke Tübingen, VOLTAP wins a Europe-wide bidding process by Niederbarnimer Eisenbahn AG for train-charging stations at four railway stations.

Our Indian subsidiary, together with a long-standing partner, wins a challenging contract for the planning and delivery of a rigid overhead conductor rail system. We will be fitting several tunnels along an important Indian railway line.

We celebrate our 100th anniversary.