Our History

1983 – 2017

Helmut Schroeder, founder of Railquip, was born in Dortmund, Germany, and came to the United States in 1966 as vice president of sales for Hoesch Manufacturing, where he was in charge of market development in North America.

In 1983, he became the sole distributor in North America of the Hoesch re-railing system and formed his own company, Railquip. Over the next 35 years, Railquip came to represent many manufacturers of rail- and transit-related support equipment, shop equipment and machinery, and Maintenance of Way equipment. Outside of business, Schroeder was interested in fine arts and dining, and soccer.

Schroeder passed on October 30, 2017 following an illness. His son, Louie Schroeder, has now taken the platform as the President of Railquip, Inc.

2017 – Present

Since assuming the presidency of Railquip, Louie Schroeder has made many transitional changes in the organization and the “Railquip Process”. Louie, being a tech savvy expert, has made changes including computer system and email server upgrades, website updates with user-friendly features, deployed improvements in operations, inventory management, sales, and marketing, and has expanded the after-sales and service departments. With the newly aligned structure, Railquip Inc. stands ready to meet future challenges with a modernized approach to compete in the current world of supply to the Rail and Transit industries.
Louie , who recently married his high school sweetheart, Jessica, loves re-modeling projects and is a consummate outdoorsman with a passion for fishing, big game hunting , and wing shooting.