The spring 2007 groundbreaking for a 30,000 sq. ft expansion of its Vögele America Inc. plant at Chambersburg, Pa., is only the latest improvement in distribution and service for Vögele America products in North America. Vögele America Inc. was introduced to North America following the 2001 acquisition of Global Asphalt Products, Inc., of Chambersburg, Pa., including its Pro Pav line of advanced hot mix asphalt paving equipment. Machines derived and substantially improved from that platform comprise today's Vögele America line.
In North America, that 2001 purchase consolidated the Wirtgen Group's position in road construction and reconstruction equipment worldwide, making superior cold milling and recycling, soil and asphalt compaction, and asphalt paving equipment available to customers from a single-source provider in North America.
Today's exciting new asphalt pavement designs -- like open-graded friction courses (OGFCs) and stone matrix asphalt (SMA) -- have their origins in Europe. And while the Vögele America line is of 100 percent North American design and manufacture, the North American units have design similarities with, and borrow from, with the line of asphalt paving products developed in Germany by Joseph Vögele AG.
Operating from its Mannheim, Germany facility, Vögele is guided by its principles of commitment to the industry, integrity, continuous improvement , and design innovation through technology. For Vögele America it's a solid foundation we use to develop innovative products and serve the asphalt paving customer base with the same passion that Joseph Vögele did, years ago.
Today, Joseph Vögele AG is bringing new research and technology out of its German facility -- and a lot of proven design concepts -- that are being utilized in Vögele America's products. For example, Joseph Vögele AG perfected electrically heated screed technology 40 years ago for environmental reasons, as well as better paving practices. That technology now is being used at Vögele America in its new screed designs.
In 1836 Joseph Vögele was established at Mannheim, a year after inauguration of the first German railway line between Fürth and Nürnberg. Early on, Vögele produced railway equipment. As the automobile was developed, in 1925 focus of the company's business was shifted from the rail to the road, and Vögele developed and manufactured concrete paving trains, soil stabilizers and asphalt pavers, with concentration ultimately on asphalt pavers.
Vögele pioneered the first road paver. Almost 85 years later this pioneering spirit persists and continues to be the driving force for innovations. Major breakthroughs in both paver engineering and paver technology were based on Vögele innovations.
In 1956 Joseph Vögele developed the asphalt paver with floating screed and electric screed heating. The floating screed laid the foundation for modern asphalt paving technology. In 1962 it introduced an asphalt paver with diesel-hydraulic drive system, which achieved high laydown rates along with high pavement quality. In 1964 its automated grade and slope control for asphalt pavers with floating screed was rolled out, which achieved a surface accuracy never known before.
Its wheeled asphalt paver was introduced in 1966, which allowed quick moving on job sites where paving could be done in half-road width only and under traffic. This paver stood out from the crowd through via its high tractive power.
The heavy-duty asphalt paver was introduced in 1973, utilized for placing crushed stone, aggregate base, lean-mixed concrete or asphalt in widths up to 41 feet, without joints. In 1980 it rolled out its high-power compaction screed with pressure bar(s) driven by pulsed-flow hydraulics. Under ideal conditions this screed is capable of producing the specified final density even with varying layer thickness, reducing the number of operations required, saving paving material and providing for enhanced utilization of the paver.
Today, the Vögele America's asphalt paver line, Wirtgen's market-leading, 18-model line of asphalt milling machines, and Hamm Compaction Division line of 30 models, allow Vögele America, Wirtgen America and Hamm Compaction to serve the total market needs of North America's highway construction, reconstruction, repair and recycling and reclaiming contractors. |
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– 1928 –
Turning Platform at Mannheim Main Station
Joseph Vögele AG is one of the oldest industrial companies in Mannheim.
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