Ahead of our Railways in Ireland Seminar later this month, we caught up with Stefan Vonbun, Head of Superstructure Products at Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group, to find out more about his career, his role and what he’ll be sharing with us at Trinity College Dublin. 

How did you start your career in the rail industry? 
I started out as a Product Manager for elastic/resilient materials for the railway superstructure. The railway industry found me by accident; I had never really planned to work in this field. Shortly after starting, I already found it really interesting and have dedicated my professional life to improving railway tracks.

Tell us a little about your career experiences to date 
I started out bringing quality of sleep to people living next to railway lines (working for a leading supplier of elastic materials for railway superstructure, namely Getzner Werkstoffe from Austria). Then I got curious about the contractor side and joined the Rhomberg group of companies. I have had a really diverse experience in the railway industry. I am still sometimes amazed at how complex the system as a whole is. It’s almost a miracle that trains are driving at all. I believe my main achievement in my career so far has been to bridge the gap between super technical topics and a wide and diverse audience. I have time and time again been able to translate difficult technicalities into easy-to-understand, digestible bites. The impact that I have had with this is hard to measure, but I’ve received very good feedback for it! 🙂

What does an average day look like for you? 
I don’t really have an average day, as my job is very diverse. I tend to have quite a lot of meetings, but I also try to be on site and out in the markets as much as I can. I travel a fair bit, so about 50–60 days of my working year are spent out of the office. Generally, I really like to interact with people and am of the firm belief that it’s important to build personal relationships and to be present where the wheel meets the rail, in order to fully understand topics and to advance the railway industry.

Why did you want to present in a RailEI technical seminar? 
I like sharing knowledge, especially because it usually sparks very interesting discussions. I always learn from every presentation that I do, because every time there are new approaches and different questions.

What’s the best bit of advice you have for someone looking to work in the rail industry? 
Most people who have no contact with the railway industry other than being a customer might underestimate how interesting and how diverse this industry is. I can only advise: dive in, try it out, you might find out you’ll love it! 😉

What are some of the biggest challenges of your current role? 
I am promoting new and innovative track solutions. The railway industry is risk-averse (for good reason) and is not so fast in adopting new solutions. This makes my job quite challenging!

What do you enjoy most about your current role? 
I really enjoy how diverse my role is, that I have a lot of freedom to fill my role with life and that I am working with great individuals inside and outside of my company.

Stefan will be presenting “Ballastless Track: A Future-Proof Approach” at our Railways in Ireland: Building Resilience in Railway Systems and Infrastructure Seminar, on Thursday 29 October, at Trinity College Dublin. 

The presentation covers ballastless track, its qualities, what to focus on when choosing a system and what a future-proof approach looks like from the viewpoint of a leading trackworks contractor. 

Find out more about the Seminar and book your place:
www.railei.org/whats-on/building-resilience-railway-systems-infrastructure/