Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corp (WAB) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Hey, and welcome to the WebTech 3rd Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal conference specialists by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch-tone phone. And to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Kyra Yates, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Wabtec's third quarter 2026 earnings call. With us today, our Chairman and CEO, Rafael Santana, CFO, John Olin, and Senior Vice President of Finance, John Mastelers. Today's slide presentation, along with our earnings release and financial disclosures, were posted to our website earlier today and can be accessed on the Investor Relations tab. Some statements we are making are forward-looking and based on our best view of the world and our business today. For more detailed risks, uncertainties, and assumptions relating to our forward-looking statements, please see the disclosures in our earnings release and presentation. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial metrics and encourage you to read our disclosures and reconciliation tables carefully as you consider these metrics. I will now turn the call over to Rafael.

Thanks, Kyra, and good morning, everyone. We delivered another strong quarter, and we are proud of the progress we have made here to date. These results reflect strength across the portfolio, discipline and execution by our teams, and the continued success of the strategic actions we have taken to enhance our growth profile, expand margins, and increase the earnings power of the company. Our teams continue to translate healthy customer demand into profitable growth while investing in technologies that will advance the future of transportation. These investments are strengthening our competitive position and reinforcing WAPTEC as a leading industrial technology company. With that, let's move to slide four. I'll start with an update on our business, my perspectives on the quarter, and progress against our long-term value creation framework, and then John will cover the financials. We delivered a strong quarter, evidenced by continued growth in our backlog, sales, margin, and earnings. In addition, our recent acquisitions continue to perform very well. Sales were $3.1 billion, which was up 8%. Adjusted EPS was up 22% from the year-ago quarter. Total cash flow from operations for the quarter was $455 million. Backlog remains a key strength. 12-month backlog was up 8.8% from the prior year, while the multi-year backlog exceeded $31 billion, up 22.9%. These results demonstrate sustained revenue and earnings momentum and provide enhanced feasibility for the fourth quarter and into the future. Our financial position remains strong. we continue to execute against our capital allocation framework, and we expect to continue to compound long-term value for our shareholders. Shifting our focus to slide five, let's talk about our 2026 and market expectations in more detail. While key metrics across our freight markets remain mixed, we continue to be encouraged by the overall strength and resilience of our business. We are pleased with the momentum in our North America and international markets, and our pipeline of opportunities across geographies continues to support our long-term growth outlook. In North America, car load traffic was up 3.5% in the quarter. As a result of this growth, WAPTAC's and industry's active locomotive fleet was up compared to last year's third quarter. Internationally, car load growth during the quarter was mixed, but the long-term car load growth trends continue to be robust. Significant investments to expand and upgrade infrastructure are driving our international orders pipeline. Looking at the North America rail car built last quarter, we discussed the industry outlook for 2026, which was approximately 25,000 cars to be delivered, and which now has been reduced by industry sources to approximately 23,000 cars. This forecast represents a 26% reduction from last year's car build. Finally, turning to the transit sector, we continue to see encouraging indicators for growth. Ridership trends remain favorable in key markets, including Europe and India, while car builders continue to maintain strong backlogs supported by robust levels of public investment for fleet expansions and renewal programs. Next, let's turn to slide six and highlight several recent business wins that demonstrate the strength of the demand across our markets and the momentum we are seeing globally. International demand for our products and services remain strong. During the quarter, we secured $1 billion of locomotive and service orders, which included significant awards in Africa and in Brazil. This wins further expense our global install base, strengthen our long-term customer partnerships, and create opportunities for attractive recurring revenues over time. In North America, we converted over 600 million dollars of pipeline opportunities into new locomotive and modernization orders for two class one customers these orders reflect our customers continued investment in fleet modernization productivity improvements and network efficiency moving on to transit we were awarded 159 million dollars in brake equipment orders from various customers reinforcing our strong market position and the healthy underlying demand we continue to see across the transit sector. Taken together, these wins highlight the value of our technology, the strength of our customer relationships, and our ability to help customers improve reliability, durability, efficiency, and safety. They also reinforce our confidence in the long-term growth opportunities across our freight and transit businesses. With that, I'll turn the call over to John to review the quarter segment results and our overall financial performance. John?

Thanks, Rafael, and hello, everyone. Turning to slide 7, I will review our results in more detail. Sales for the third quarter were $3.12 billion, which reflects an 8.1% increase versus the prior year, with strong contributions from both the freight and transit segments, including acquisitions. Excluding the impact of currency, Q3 sales were up 8.3%. As discussed in our last earnings call, we raised our full-year revenue guidance $110 million at the midpoint, reflecting the incremental flow business activity we experienced during the second quarter and our expectations for continued demand in the back half of the year. While timing of certain locomotive deliveries shifted out of the third quarter and into the fourth quarter, these shifts do not change our view of the strong underlying demand environment or our full-year revenue guidance. From a margin standpoint, we anticipated third quarter's margin expansion would be generally in line with the performance achieved during the first half of the year. In actuality, our operating margin expansion exceeded those expectations. The better-than-expected margin performance included favorable product mix, strong operational execution, including productivity benefits from Integration 3.0 and other efficiency initiatives, as well as lower operating expenses as a percent of revenue, resulting from disciplined cost management. Having said that, GAAP operating income was $625 million, which was up 27.3% versus the prior year. The increase was predominantly driven by higher sales and improved gross margin. Adjusted operating margin for Q3 was 22.9%, up 1.9 percentage points versus prior year. Gap earnings per diluted share was $2.42, which was up 33.7% versus the year-ago quarter. During the quarter, we had net pre-tax charges of $5 million for restructuring, which were primarily related to our integration and portfolio optimization initiatives to further integrate and streamline WebTex operations. In addition, versus our Q3 expectations, our earnings benefited from a non-operational item, which is reported as other income, resulting primarily from the impact of currency fluctuations. In the quarter, adjusted earnings per diluted share was $2.83, up 22.0% versus the prior year. The quarter reflects the strength of our execution, the resilience of the business, and solid momentum as we move into the fourth quarter. Now turning to slide eight, let's review our product line's performance in more detail. Third quarter consolidated sales were up 8.1%. Equipment sales were up slightly from last year's third quarter. During the quarter, revenue benefited from increased mining sales, which were largely offset by lower locomotive deliveries, partly driven by units shifting to the fourth quarter. Services revenue was up 6.7% from last year's third quarter, driven by strong core services sales growth and higher modernization deliveries as expected. Component sales were up 5.3% versus last year due to industrial, maintenance of way, and international demand, partly offset by the industry's decline in North America rail car build and behind our portfolio optimization efforts. Digital intelligence sales were up 24.2% from last year. This was driven by contributions from the Frauscher Sensor Technologies acquisition and strong core digital demand. In our transit segment, sales were up 11.3%, driven by the Delner acquisition and growth across our products and services businesses. Foreign currency exchange had an unfavorable impact on sales in the quarter of 1.1 percentage points. Moving to slide 9, GAAP gross margin was 37.3%, which was up 2.6 percentage points from the third quarter last year. Adjusted gross margin was up 1.8 percentage points during the quarter. Gap operating margin was 20.0%, which was up 3.0 percentage points versus last year. Adjusted operating margin improved 1.9 percentage points to 22.9%. Operating margin was positively impacted by favorable product mix and productivity benefits from integration 3.0 and other efficiency initiatives. which were partly offset by higher manufacturing costs, year-over-year net tariffs, which included a nominal tariff refund. Adjusted GAAP and SG&A expenses were higher year-over-year due largely to the SG&A expense associated with our acquisitions, however, which were lower as a percentage of revenue. engineering expense was 67 million dollars eight million dollars higher than q3 last year primarily due to acquisitions we continue to invest in engineering resources in current business opportunities but more importantly we are investing in our future as a leading industrial technology company focused on improving our customers fuel efficiency labor productivity, capacity utilization, and safety. Now let's take a look at the segment results on slide 10, starting with the freight segment. As I already discussed, freight segment sales were up 6.9%. Gapped segment operating income was $515 million, driving an operating margin of 23.0%, up 3.2 percentage points versus last year. • Adjusted operating income for the freight segment was $591 million, up 15.2% versus the prior year • Adjusted operating margin in the freight segment was 26.4%, up 1.9 percentage points from prior year. The increase was driven by a 1.5 percentage point improvement in gross margin, along with a 0.4 percentage point reduction in operating expenses as a percent of revenue Finally, the freight segment's 12-month backlog was $6.54 billion. Our 12-month backlog was up 7.5%, while the multi-year backlog of $25.77 billion was up 23.2%. Turning to slide 11, transit segment sales were up 11.3% at $883 million. dollars. When adjusting for foreign currency, transit sales were up 12.5 percent. Gap operating income was up 145 million dollars, which reflected the quarter's robust revenue growth and operating margin expansion. Adjusted segment operating income was 160 million dollars. Adjusted operating income as a percent of revenue was 18.1 percent, up 2.6 percentage points from prior year. With the underlying momentum of the business, and the Delner acquisition serving as key contributors to this quarter's margin expansion. Finally, Transit's 12-month backlog for the quarter was $2.45 billion, and our 12-month backlog was up 12.2 percent, while the multi-year backlog was up 21.4 percent. Now let's turn to our financial position on slide 12. Third quarter cash flow generation was $455 million, resulting in a cash conversion of 82%. Our balance sheet and financial position continue to be very strong, as evidenced by, first, our liquidity position, which ended the quarter over $2 billion, and our net debt leverage ratio, which ended the third quarter at 2.1 times. We continue to allocate capital in a disciplined way to maximized returns, with an expectation of compounding our earnings for our shareholders. During the quarter, we repurchased $305 million of our shares and paid $52 million in dividends. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Rafael to talk about our 2026 financial guidance.

Thanks, John. Now let's turn to slide 13 to discuss our 2026 outlook and guidance. Overall, the team delivered a strong third quarter with our earnings results ahead of our expectations. Importantly, we continue to see the underlying demand for our products and solutions across the business. That demand is reflected in a strong pipeline, and both our 12-month and multi-year backlogs provide clear visibility into profitable growth ahead. As we look at the fourth quarter, in light of our third quarter results and our ongoing underlying momentum, we are raising our full-year adjusted EPS guidance. We now expect adjusted EPS to be in the range of $10.85 to $11.05, up 22% at the midpoint. Our revenue guidance remains unchanged. Looking ahead, I'm confident that Wattek's well-positioned to drive profitable growth to close out a strong 2026. Now let's wrap up on slide 14. As we've heard today, our team continues to execute against our value creation framework and our five-year outlook. The strength of our performance reflects the resilience of our install base, the dedication of our global team, our differentiated technologies, and our focus on delivering value for our customers. We also remain encouraged by the integration and early performance of our recent acquisitions. These businesses have strengthened our portfolios, enhanced our technology capabilities, and expanded our available markets, creating additional avenues for sustainable growth. These factors continue to reinforce our confidence that Wabtec is uniquely positioned as a leading industrial technology company. With a talented global team, strong customer relationships, and a clear strategy for growth, we are well positioned to deliver profitable growth and continue to compound shareholder value over time.

With that, I want to thank you for your time this morning and i'll now turn the call over to kyra to begin the q a portion of our discussion kyra thank you rafael we will now move on to questions but before we do and out of consideration for others on the call i ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question if you have additional questions please rejoin the queue operator we are now ready for our first question.

Thank you. To ask a question, please press star then one on your touchtone phone. And if you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. And if at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. And our first question for today will come from Ken Hoekster with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hey, great. Good morning, Raphael, John, Kyra and team. So just jumping in with the margins, right? Seems to set a new bar at freight over 26 percent, transit over 18. Can you talk about kind of the structural gains? I don't know if it's just the acquisitions or maybe, John, talk about sustainability and seasonality. What should we expect into fourth quarter given mix or going into 27? Thanks.

Sure, Ken. This is John. Well, as we mentioned, we had a very strong third quarter, so why don't we start there? The third quarter was up 1.9 percentage points, and that was higher than our expectations, but we were expecting growth in the third quarter, which we've talked about throughout the year. And with that, the biggest drivers, Ken, are really around what I'd call operational excellence, just fantastic execution by the team throughout the supply chain. With that, we got more everyday productivity, right lean comes in more favorable, overall plant efficiencies are there. And in addition to that, the more structural aspects also came in favorable, and that's integration 3.0, right? We've been running ahead of expectations for that for most of the year, and the program's just running very well. The third quarter was no difference. And then on top of that, we've got the portfolio optimization piece, which is basically ridding ourselves of assets that aren't going to take us to the future that we aspire to. So all of that was certainly higher on a year-over-year basis and higher than our expectations. Product mix was also favorable. While we expected product mix in the quarter to be favorable, it was more favorable than we anticipated. And remember, Ken, in the first half, we talked about product mix being a headwind that would turn into a tailwind in the back half. So we'll see that carry through the fourth quarter as well. And then finally, overall, the cost management, SG&A as a percentage of revenue was lower. So that's really with regards to the quarter. As we flip forward, Ken, to the fourth quarter, we've talked about this as we expect the fourth quarter to be a fair amount higher in margin expansion than the third quarter. And the reasons for that are a couple fold. One is the tariff headwinds that we've really experienced quite significantly in the first half, a little bit less so in the third quarter, but a fair amount of headwinds in the third quarter start to dissipate on a year over year basis. Those tariffs do not go away, but the year over year impact will provide less of a headwind and therefore we'll see more margin expansion. And then partly as to what we compared to in the year-ago quarter, the fourth quarter of 2025, we had some comp accruals in there, given the very strong overall cash delivery. So with that, we would expect, let's call it oversized margin in the fourth quarter. And with that, it'll deliver, again, 20 cents higher overall EPS as we look forward. But the margins are very sustainable, Ken. The team is doing a great job. A lot of them are cost-driven, and we can continue to hold that as we move into the future.

Great. Thanks for the detail. And I guess just for a follow-up, your backlog was up almost 9%, I guess. 12-month was down slightly sequentially, total up slightly. I know it's lumpy, but maybe thoughts on organic growth or maybe just any other thoughts you want to throw on the backlog? I know a lot of investors really focus on the growth level there. Thanks.

So let me take that one on the backlog. I think we've continued to grow that in both size and profitability. That certainly matters. But I think coverage is really a critical piece here. That means having orders in hand to match what I call our product lead times. So you think about for long lead time products like new locomotives, that means having orders 24, 36 months out. Our teams have done a great job extending that visibility across the product mix, and our coverage right now is the strongest it's ever been. So that's good news. I think the better news is the continued momentum we continue to see around the pipeline of opportunities. That continues to be very strong.

Thanks, Rafael. Thanks, John. Your next question will come from Bosco Majors with Stevens. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my questions. It's good to see more of the orders come in for both new locomotives and modernizations across the Class 1 customers after you called out some in the prior quarter. Can you talk about the pipeline specific to North American Class 1? What coverage do you have into next year? How long does this 600 and change of orders sort of extend your visibility into? And what does the pipeline look like? And maybe some comments on the Class 1 ordering behavior and how long they would like to be booked out today versus a few years ago as we think about the evolution of that revenue stream into 27, 28, 29.

Thanks. Hey, our coverage, let me just start there, is the strongest it's ever been. That's good news. I think the better news is that we continue to see momentum and the opportunities here. I was just in Central Asia early this week, and we will continue to expand our fleets here in support of the middle corridor. So that's good news. In freight and specific, we continue to see opportunities in North America as well. That's customer-specific. At this point, we have not seen what I call changing in buying behavior associated with the recent car load growth. But again, that's customer-specific. I think more broadly, we continue to have opportunities in Africa, in Asia, and in transit. I mean, as you see it here in the quarter, that's being led fundamentally by India and Europe. So that continues to be a very strong pipeline, and our teams have had really a strong track record here on converting that.

Specific to the North American class ones, can you give us any sense on visibility into that market and coverage and just any high-level expectations as if that's a growth opportunity into 27 and 28?

It is a growth opportunity as we look at it. I think some of it is tied to really the age of the fleet. We see the renewal here as really an element of tailwind that's not included in our guidance. And we see that really as an element of opportunity moving forward. So as I highlighted before, we have not seen what I'll call a change in buying behavior. Again, this is very customer specific. Thank you. Thank you.

The next question will come from Angel Castillo with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Congrats on the quarter, and thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to expand a little bit more on integration 2.0 and the portfolio optimization. I was hoping you could put a little bit more color, quantitative, finer points on portfolio optimization, how much you're kind of delivering this year versus how much you might still kind of have to be delivered here over the next couple quarters. And then, I guess, a notable aspect of integration 3.0 was just, you know, 350 basis points plus of margin improvement, and you've clearly been doing very well in terms of execution on the operational front. So, just any incremental kind of finer point you can put on that plus, like how much upside ultimately you're seeing and what you can deliver, you know, over your kind of five-year target.

Great, Angel. This is John. Both programs, Integration 3.0 and Portfolio Optimization, are aimed at increasing our overall margin, right? On the integration side, we've talked about these projects for a couple years. We've moved from the synergies that we got out of GE to Integration 2.0 and now on Integration 3.0. You know, Angel, I liken it to a snowball coming down the hill, right? It's coming down faster and getting bigger. And that's exactly what we're seeing with integration 3.0, right? The savings are coming in higher than what we expected. The cost is lower to deliver those savings that we saw in integration 2.0. And the organization's just in a strong rhythm of looking at both costs from an everyday continuous improvement standpoint and also from a more structural standpoint, right, of how do we build this, or maybe the better term is to eliminate the complexities that we have to drive more efficient business. So we feel that there's still a whole lot of opportunity left there. You know, the formal aspect of that program will end in terms of investment in a year and a half from now and two and a half years of savings, but we're already looking at what's next, right? Portfolio optimization is really taking a look at it in a different way and looking at things that are adding complexity, but aren't adding the profits that we would expect. And with that, even on their best day, they might not be worthy of our ownership at this point. So those we're shedding ourselves. And that's been anywhere between $50 and $100 million a year. And we're going to continue on that. We still see opportunity to tighten our overall portfolio. So we'll continue on that. With regards to the 350 plus basis points, we still have a ways to go on that. But I would say that we're off to a very good start, and that's one of the reasons that plus is there. I think this is a core strength of the company, and we'll continue to work and deliver it. But we see the opportunity on the cost side certainly continuing throughout the remainder of our long-term guidance period.

Helpful. Thank you. And then, Rafael, I wanted to go back to your commentary around this robust pipeline. And I think you mentioned you're still not seeing perhaps a shift in customer behavior per se. But with the North America, you know, traffic or industry, just traffic volumes continue to be up low single digits. I guess, what are your conversations like? What are the customers waiting for before you start to see potentially a shift in buying or, I guess, appetite for buying new, you know, more power, ultimately new locomotives? and just, you know, ultimately just how that might convert into kind of backlog. Is it a matter of quarters? Is it a matter of years? And, you know, where does diesel kind of play into all of that?

I think as customers continue to see those trends remain there, I think there's going to be the opportunity here to relook at really an element of the fleet renewal per se. What we have seen is in the fall part of the business, certainly with the unparking of units, more ordering of parts, and that's being reflected in some of the numbers here for the year. So that's something we're continuing to watch out here for the quarter. So that remains as a positive. But I think customers are going to be looking at really the continued trends here on car load growth, and I think there's certainly opportunity when you look at the availability of fleets to move and to support that growth.

The next question will come from Scott Group with Wolf Research. Please go ahead.

Good morning. So I guess this year there's been some degree of, I guess, transactional headwinds relative to the backlog. So same story, lagging the backlog a little bit. How should we think about that looking ahead? And I think, Raphael, you said, like, North America, low-growth deliveries start growing again next year. Any other, like, puts and takes to think about for 27?

Scott, I start with we're continuing to accelerate organic revenues in 26, and that's true for both freight and transit. Year-to-date, so organic outfits sits at 5.2%. The execution is strong in the business. We're building momentum, and we expect that organic growth will be above 5%. That has been captured in the update guidance we've provided. Our backlog's stronger. We have better coverage with multi-year orders, and those carry higher margins. So I think that's really important to say. The other element, the highlight here is the acquisitions performing ahead of plan. So that's also a positive. So overall, I think it's been a strong year, teams delivering ahead of plans, and we're really well positioned with the coverage to support the continued execution for the business.

Hey, Scott, this is John. I would say that the backlog has not been a headwind at all, actually the opposite, and we've been growing in that mid-single-digit range throughout the year. I think where the headwind is is really on tariffs, right? And we talked about that a little bit earlier, is those headwinds are going to mitigate in the fourth quarter and should be, on a year-over-year basis, not a big deal in 2027. So that provides – that's not a tailwind, but it won't be the headwind that it was. But I think that's the biggest headwind that we've experienced throughout this year.

So if I wasn't – I meant there's been some, like, transactional things or, like, the rail car delivery that's not in the backlog or something like that that's been – Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes, about 30% of our revenue is not included in the backlog. And you're absolutely right, Scott, that has been a headwind with the rail cars being down projected by the industry to be down about 27%. I think our team and component has done a fantastic job of minimizing, you know, that the OE part of the rail car build being down so much aftermarket is doing fine. And then, geez, this quarter, maintenance away was a big contributor to the fact that they were up 5%. And then our industrial businesses have chugged along over the last, I don't know, six to eight quarters, helping to minimize some of that. So, yes, we're hoping that as we move forward that the rail car build will stabilize and start to grow, you know, as we get into future periods.

Okay. Yep, that makes sense. That's what I was trying to figure out. And then – so the other question, you know, I think it's – we're on track for our third straight year of volume growth for the rails. Some of the rails are getting back to, like, their highest, like, volume levels in a decade. Do you think it – when do you think this starts to sort of matter for either new orders, aftermarket? Do we still need a few more years of growth before this matters, or are we getting close?

Scott, I think we're seeing that already when it comes down to flow, which is parts to really un-park units or to sustain those levels of un-parking. Now, with that being said, I think there's an element here of investing in what I call both efficiency with units that are more efficient, more reliable. And I think that's the exact conversation. Those are, again, customer-specific, and as I said, we do set on significant opportunities here in North America, but this is more than North America. The opportunity in North America, we have not accounted in terms of, like, really a broader fleet renewal program taking place as we look into our guidance. So that would be a tailwind for the business.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

The next question will come from Rob Wertheimer with Malias Research. Please go ahead.

Thanks. I had a couple questions outside North America, a rail, where obviously you have some strength in mining. I wonder if you might characterize, is mining coming back in pockets in big projects? You mentioned Simandu, or is there a broader recovery? And then just in general, Rafael, you characterized international freight as strong for a while on locomotive deliveries. I wonder if you could just talk about where you stand now, what your win rate looks like, looks pretty good, and just how you see that market.

Let me start with the last part, which is tied to the international markets. It continues to be a very competitive market, but on the flip side of that, we've continued to invest in our product. I think we're really continuing to extend our technology lead, and that's fixed not just to the lifecycle cost of our product, but also safety, I mean, efficiency overall, and I think we're continuing to win out there. In terms of the pockets, I did mention Central Asia here. I think some of the wins we had last year in terms of Kazakhstan, that's extending to other parts of the corridor, so that's going to continue to be a significant opportunity for us here, and you're going to be hearing back from us on that. Africa, we continue to see some specific pockets of opportunities. And in Asia, we have that as well. I think on more specifically mining, well, I think we're seeing that on both. We see that in the elements of pockets, but we see that if you think of the ultra-class size trucks as well, those are trucks above the 300-ton range. I think we're very well positioned there. There's a technology that we've had and that we've led from early on, and we continue to progress there, and the trends are positively connected to really some specific commodities.

The next question will come from Ben Moore with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Morning, Rafael, John, Kyra. Thanks for taking the question, and congrats on the BEAT and EPS raise. I wanted to focus on the equipment revenue for 3Q. You had mentioned some of that shifted from 3Q to 4Q, and I wanted to just maybe get a sense from you how we should model that going into 4Q, kind of coming from both the 3Q stuff that was shifted as well as what would have been in 4Q in the first place. And I wanted to see if that may have been tied to, on page five, where you show the Kazakh industry freight volumes year-to-date being down 1.8 percent, and Brazil was also kind of flattish at up 0.1 percent. Is the equipment being pushed to 4Q related to some of these country-specific freight volumes?

Thanks, Ben. And starting with the second part of that question, no, it has nothing to do with any international or domestic car load movements. You know, it's a usual thing to have things move from one period to the other. It's not that big of a deal. But in the third quarter, we did see some units move out of the third quarter into the fourth quarter. Nothing from an operational standpoint. I talked about our operational execution has been fine. but at times on the scheduling of a movement of a piece of equipment like that or a customer accepting it, we do see things move from time to time. So as we look at our own expectations for the third quarter, revenue growth came in less than expected, but that is simply timing and nothing more, and that's just moved to the fourth quarter. Matter of fact, they're already gone and shipped. So with that, we don't expect any full year impact on that. We raised our guidance in the second quarter by the $110 million to recognize the North American growth of car loads. We're tracking very well to that. The momentum of the business is strong and we will see versus our expectations a higher level of revenue in the fourth quarter driven by it. But we are coming in right in line with the guidance that we set a quarter Wonderful.

Thank you so much for that color. And related to that, kind of extending to touching on your backlog, your 12-month backlog did step down sequentially, which could imply softer revenues, would imply in the next few quarters. But your multi-year backlog stepped up, as has been discussed in the last few questions. So that should drive very strong revenue in the long term. How should we think about modeling your revenue, especially going into 4Q on this point? And because the North American rail carloads' strength have been sustained, how should we look at kind of the flow business potentially turning into backlog? And how much should we kind of break that out into services, equipment, digital, intel, revenue for 4Q? I understand a lot of it's been overhauls and mods that hit your services. should we see the North America car loads sustained hitting your equipment and your digital intel as well?

Okay, starting out with the backlog, Ben, from a sequential standpoint, it has come down, but it was expected to come down. We are lapping the evident acquisition, and while they don't have a huge concentration of backlog, they did have some backlog, and so that's now pulled out. I think when you take a step back and look at the backlog growth over the last several quarters, it has been in the mid-single-digit range, right? So acquisitions and currency are making more of the movement between quarters than anything else. And we've had steady growth in terms of organic or the organic piece of the 12-month backlog. with regards to the flow business right we just talked about about 30 percent of our revenue does not fall in to a multi-year or a 12-month backlog it just means the cycle times are quicker and with that there's two major areas that fall into there one is the rail car business and the second one is a lot of the parts businesses for our service side that are not under contract not under a long-term agreement or MSA. And so with regards to these, it really depends on what is under the service business. The underlying car load growth is a driver of that. And with that, we saw that step up in acceleration in the second quarter, and we've seen that carry forward to the third quarter. And that's manifested in the fact that we've got more locomotives moving, active locomotives in North America this quarter versus a year-ago quarter. So those things are just stuff that we follow closely, and they're a little bit more nimble in terms of the movement versus the backlog, which we have orders for that go out, you know, up to several years.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. The next question will come from Jerry Ribich with Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi. Good morning, everyone. I'm wondering if we just go back to talk about the long-term margin framework and growth framework. As we think about 27, we should see much higher mod deliveries for you folks based on major contract ramp, and it sounds like mid-single-digit organic growth is on track. I'm wondering, is there an opportunity for margin expansion in 27 to be higher than the 70 basis points of operating improvement that you folks typically target given the mix. Can you just comment on the puts and takes as we think about from a high-level 27 margins?

Yeah, Jerry, so it's a little bit early to talk about 27. But when we look at the construct as we move out of 26, in terms of margin, it's going to be relatively similar to what we've seen in the past than what we've got in that 350-plus basis points in terms of the elements. And we would expect about two-thirds of it to come from the cost side. And we just talked about that. Things are going very well. We continue to come in higher than expected, so we feel great about that. And the pool of opportunity, it seems that the more we deliver, the more we find out how to get at it. And so that bucket doesn't seem to be going down. and it'll provide a lot of opportunity going forward. The other third of it is on, you know, delivering innovative products that we can get the value for, and we've got a lot in our pipeline. We haven't talked much on this call, but our innovation continues to be very, very strong, and we'll see some of that transact as we go forward. But in terms of specifics, We would expect margin growth, certainly in 2027, but a little bit earlier to talk about the magnitude of that, Jerry.

Okay.

Thank you, John.

And then separately, Rafael, can we just expand on the international pipeline? When do you expect to see the inquiries turn into bookings based on the cadence? And can you comment on the opportunity set in Argentina specifically? Could that be a meaningful part of the opportunity set as you look at over the next 12 months?

Yes. We are, again, as I look at the various opportunities, I mean, there's certainly, I think, some pockets and markets to highlight. Africa continues to be one of those. I think we're still looking at some sizable opportunities there. I didn't bring in Central Asia, as we do expect opportunities here also for sizable growth. I think in Asia, some of those opportunities continue, and you're going to see that converting into the future here. But it's a strong pipeline of opportunities. The momentum is there. I need to mention here in North America, where we certainly have opportunities too. So I think that's the positive side of it. It's not concentrated on a single customer or a single market. I think the trends remain there. and they do support a strong pipeline of opportunities for our team. I have had a strong track record here in converting, so I feel positive about the opportunity to continue to expand.

Thank you, Rafael. But Argentina, South America specifically, can you comment on your level of optimism there? Is that meaningful?

I think we're well-positioned in South America. We've certainly had a strong presence there in Brazil. We've made, I think, some significant progress even on some markets with smaller orders. Argentina, it is a market that we have on stall bays, and we're well-positioned here for the discussions that are taking place in the South American market, whether it's associated with new concessions, expansion of new concessions. I'm not going to discuss any specific opportunities here, but we certainly feel very strong about the presence we have into that market.

Thank you.

The next question will come from Tammy Zakaria with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you so much. I had a question regarding your very strong margin performance in the quarter, and I think you said it was better than expected. So are you able to rank the different drivers in terms of magnitude coming from integration 3.0 versus portfolio optimization versus product mix? I think that would be helpful.

Well, as a broader bucket, Tammy, certainly under the banner that I called out in terms of operational excellence, that was the biggest driver. That was the biggest driver on a year-over-year basis, and it was the biggest driver over our expectation. We haven't quantified the differences between lean, everyday continuous improvement, and integration 3.0. And then, again, there was some portfolio optimization in there. But that is really the piece that is driving faster and harder than anything else during the quarter. Again, mix came in favorable as well. that would be lesser certainly to the operational excellence. Also, fixed cost absorption is a benefit when we're growing revenue at 8% and not needing to add additional assets to do that or fixed costs to do that. So all of that was contributing, but the biggest one really was on the cost side and the discipline that we've got coming from our plants around the world.

Understood. Thank you. And then do you currently have a view of what real car bills or deliveries could look like next year after about 23K this year in North America? And how does that inform your view of the component segment growth in the next few quarters after a very strong 5%? Is 5% sort of or mid-single-digit the new normal for the component segment for the next few quarters?

Give me a couple comments there. I mean, that's something we're certainly watching very carefully, especially for the quarter. That's one of the things that could move numbers. We do expect to be hitting an inflection point here for the year. And as we go into 27, I think industry forecast is really to be going up, back to really 2025 numbers, still well below here the replacement ratio.

Understood. Thank you. Thank you.

The next question is a follow-up from Boscombe Majors with Stevens. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my follow-up. And I know we'll hear your next year view in February in due time here, but big picture, as you look out over the next two to three years, do you see more opportunity to sort of gradually accelerate the organic growth trajectory of the business? Or is it really more about executing on the really fine margin expansion that you guys have been delivering here?

I think it's both plus some, and I'll start with the fundamentals of the business being strong. I think we're winning both in North America and international, certainly in freight and transits. I think we've extended the order coverage while improving really the quality of the backlog. The execution is strong with on-time delivery. We're continuing to see opportunities to drive both productivity, simplification, efficiency across the business. I think we're very happy on how we're extending the technology leads through automation, best-in-class gains and efficiency, safety, lifecycle cost. So I think there's opportunities here not to only keep growing our install base, but to ultimately really help our customers improve the return on investment on really updating and modernizing their fleets. Fleets that are over 20 years old, and just keep in mind the dynamics of obsolescence. I've talked to you about electronics. That is coming to play in a big way, and that's a function of really having to update units. And you will update them so you can have gains in efficiency and safety and a number of fronts. So I think we see it here, an opportunity with technology to accelerate that growth. And, of course, as you think beyond organic growth, I think we stand on some significant opportunities to also look at inorganic place, and we do have good pipelines. So all in all, I think the fundamentals of the business are strong, our portfolio is more resilient, and we're highly confident in our ability to deliver on long-term guidance.

Thank you for that, Rafael. And if I could just add one more clarifying question. Can you update us on the regulatory framework and review of zero to zero? And, you know, if we're at a point where that could become a tactical revenue driver for the business in the next couple of quarters. Thank you.

That's continuing to progress. We're expecting FRA approval on that. And I think you'll be hearing on that. Thank you. Thank you.

The next question is another follow-up from Ken Hoekster with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for the update on Zero to Zero. Definitely look to hear more. The competitive market, I guess a few quarters ago we'd heard orders from maybe a dormant competitor now getting back in the market. Are we seeing that competitive market increasing at all for domestic locomotives? I just wanted to see if there was any follow-on or completion to that order and if you're seeing that in the market.

It remains a competitive market out there, Ken. What I'll say is we're continuing to extend our technology lead, and that has to do with the investments we've made in technology, and it's not just at the product level. If you think about automation, best-in-class gains, that ultimately translate into not just lifecycle cost, safety, and efficiency. So if anything, we are committed to continue to extend that technology, which positions the business very well to continue winning out there, and that's what we're saying.

And this will end our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Ms. Kyra Yates for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chuck, and thank you, everyone, for your participation today. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Have a great day.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. you may now disconnect.