Freightcar America, Inc.

Welcome to the Fright Car America first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participant lines are in a listen-only mode. For those of you participating on the conference call, there will be an opportunity for your questions at the end of today's prepared comments. Please note, this conference is being recorded. An audio replay of the conference call will be available on the company's website within a few hours after this call. I would now like to turn the call over to Chris Oden with Riverin Investor Relations. Over to you, Chris.

Thank you and welcome. Joining me today are Nick Randall, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mike Reardon, Chief Financial Officer, and Matt Ton, Chief Commercial Officer. I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during the conference call relating to the company's expected future performance, future business prospects, or future events or plans may include forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Participants are directed to FreightCar America's Form 10-K for description of certain business risks, some of which may be outside of the control of the company that may cause actual results to materially differ from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any duty to provide updates to our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. During today's call, there will also be a discussion of some items that do not conform to U.S. generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the earnings release issued yesterday afternoon. Our earnings release for the first quarter of 2026 is posted on the company's website at freightcaramerica.com. along with the 8K, which was filed at market close yesterday. With that, I will now turn the call over to Nick for a few opening remarks.

Thank you, Chris. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us today. Our first quarter results were in line with expectations and remained consistent with the operating cadence we expect for 2026. At the same time, our commercial differentiation and expanding aftermarket business, which grew 86% year over year, continues to distinguish freight car America and reinforces the resilience of our business model across market cycles. Our ability to serve specialized customer needs through not only new car builds, but also retrofits, conversions, and our expanding aftermarket platform all play a key role in growing our addressable revenue opportunities and allowing us to fulfill a broader set of customer programs. In short, Freight Car America is a truly diversified rail car platform, and that remains central to our strategy. Supported by our manufacturing expertise and strong productivity improvements, we realized one of the highest gross margin quarters in over a decade, with 17% gross margin in the quarter. This represents an expansion of 190 basis points year over year. What is especially encouraging is that we achieved this performance on lower line utilization, highlighting the operational agility and variable cost structure of the business. Commercial activity was also encouraging in the quarter, with significantly improved pipeline activity amongst key accounts and solid order intake, including demand for our conversion and retrofit work. We increased our backlog by 19 million sequentially, And together with the expected contribution from retrofit and aftermarket activity, we continue to expect performance to be weighted towards the back half of the year. Internally, as we have scaled our manufacturing footprint, we have been on a continuous improvement journey focused on enhancing productivity and strengthening execution across our manufacturing operations. During that time, we have successfully established four fully operational production lines and have taken a relentless approach in driving efficient manufacturing practices. We are extremely pleased with our progress to date, noting that we have increased productivity by approximately 50% over the last 24 months. In addition, we remain agile and are able to remain flexible as needed, giving us additional operating capability as demand evolves. Together, these actions and capabilities provide additional support to drive consistent margin performance over the long term. At the same time, programs like TrueTrack are helping reinforce accountability, real-time build visibility, and quality throughout the production process, driving greater consistency, reducing rework, and strengthening production discipline across our operations. We also remain focused on the continued expansion of our aftermarket platform, an important part of our strategy to build a broader and more balanced rail business over time. We are excited with the progress we have seen so far with our recent acquisition, which represents an important step in expanding our aftermarket capabilities. We remain disciplined in how we invest behind that strategy, with a focus on selective adjacent opportunities that strengthen our position in core rail markets, expand our capabilities, and support attractive long-term returns. Overall, we remain mindful of the current new build environment, where industry order activity has remained relatively consistent with last year's levels. Importantly, that dynamic continues to point to the underlying pent-up demand As fleets age and deferred replacement needs build over time, as those fleets reach retirement age, customers are increasingly likely to place orders closer to the required delivering timing, which tends to favor more agile manufacturers by creating a shorter lead time environment. Freight Car America is well positioned in that regard. With our improved productivity, stronger operating discipline, and a flexible manufacturing model with scalable capacity, we are well equipped to respond efficiently and capitalize on opportunities as replacement demand returns over time. With that, I'll turn it over to Matt to discuss the market environment in more detail.