[1][2][3][4][5] The company was founded as Vertex Rail Technologies, based in Massachusetts, in 2014, and publicly announced in November its plans to purchase a former Terex manufacturing facility in Wilmington and convert it to railcar construction.
[6] In April 2015, Vertex Rail Technologies entered into a joint venture with Chinese manufacturer CRRC Corporation and Hong Kong–based private equity firm Majestic Legend Holdings, under which the manufacturing operation was named Vertex Railcar, CRRC provided railcar designs and some components, and Majestic Legend invested $6 million.
[7] Once Vertex received regulatory approval for and began manufacturing railcars, CRRC would be able to increase its stake to 50% by buying out the other stakeholders.
[9] It began building hopper cars, constructed of US and Chinese origin components, in September, and delivered the first of them in December.
[12] In August 2016, at the request of a letter from 55 US House of Representatives members alleging that Vertex was being unfairly subsidized by the Chinese government by way of state-owned CRRC, the United States Department of the Treasury began an investigation into whether the Chinese investment in Vertex constituted a national security risk.