Company

Initially, the site of the current company headquarters in Trnava, 40 kilometers north of the Slovakian capital Bratislava, belonged to the mechanized track management of the Czechoslovakian state railway "Československé štátne dráhy" (ČSD). The 26,000-square-metre site consists of two factories, opened in 1930 and 1987, respectively, originally used for manufacturing, repairing and maintaining small machinery for railway line maintenance, such as screwdrivers, cutters, trolleys and conveyor belts. At the time, the site comprised 930 meters of tracks, one of which led partly to a production hall for loading and unloading railway wagons.

In 1994, ŽELOS spol. Ltd. was founded. Its first partners were two companies: WIN spol. s.r.o. and EEWS spol. s.r.o. They initially focused on raising the technical and technological level of the existing production facilities and investing in upcoming projects. The long-term vision: more employment for Trnava's citizens and its surroundings. The main business area had been repairing, maintaining, modernizing and reconstructing railway wagons, their parts and components, welding of rolling stock and metal production. ŽELOS was also engaged in additional business areas, such as financial and consulting activities, depending on the needs of its customers. In 1999 EEWS spol. s r.o. became the sole owner and operator of ŽELOS.

In 2020, VTG GmbH (then: VTG AG) acquired Želos with 110 employees from its EEW owner Miroslav Hlavna. Based in Hamburg/Germany, VTG is the private sector's leading European wagon leasing company. The press release announcing the acquisition states: "This move is an important step in our maintenance strategy - especially given the limited workshop capacity in Europe". In turn, Želos will not only become part of a holding company that owns 88,500 wagons and three other wagon repair workshops but also of an extensive euopean-wide partner network.