by Sergio Milatias 
Editor in Chief of Revista do Parafusos

The trade fair NT Expo (Portuguese acronym: "Negócios nos Trilhos") was held between February 28 - March 02, 2023, with around 4,300 visitors, in São Paulo City, SP, Brazil. 

A modest event, the NT Expo could be bigger than is today, a situation consequently caused by many wrongs from development of governments, including the imperial period, in Century XIX. 

Just to compare, the national railway network in Brazil has around just 29,000 km long, less than the 38,000 km from 1940-1950 decades. Unfortunately, practically all governments have promised to prioritize this sector, but they leave more promises than trails.

However, since 1992 the sector came back to receive many private investments, that keep the hope better days that rails modals. Today, around 75% of railroads are at the service of commodities such as iron ore, 12% for soybeans.

The only fastener manufacturer attending as exhibitor in that edition was the J. Lanfranco Amsud, a French fastener company specialist in production about self-locking split nuts to use in tracks, from dimensions M2 to M48, in classes 8.8 to 12.9. 

"In the NT-Expo the highlight was on account of the lines nuts for critical fastening systems with high levels of corrosion and vibration, as there is no railway environment", told the Lanfranco global export manager at side the commercial manager of the Brazilian subsidiary: the French Karin Schinasi, and the Brazilian Telma Silveira.