China’s two largest makers of trains – China CNR and CSR Corp. – announced they were merging on Tuesday, in a bid to compete for global rail deals against international competitors such as Germany’s Siemens and Canada’s Bombardier.

The combined $26-billion US company will concentrate on selling Chinese rail technology overseas, including high-speed trains.

China has built its train expertise with domestic projects, including a high-speed rail network linking cities such as Beijing and Shanghai and Beijing and Harbin. Many of those projects incorporated foreign-developed technology.

But China CNR and CSR Corp. have traditionally competed for overseas contracts.

In October, China CNR won a $567-million contract to supply trains to Boston and both companies have expressed interest in bidding on more U.S. contracts.

"A merged new firm will further improve product mix… enhance technological strength and optimize global resource allocation," the companies said in a statement.

The combined annual revenue of the new company is about 200 billion yuan ($32.71 billion), according to Reuters.

That makes the merged company smaller than Siemens with global revenue of $96.5 billion (not all of it in rail), and larger than Bombardier with $18.2 billion in total revenue.

Under the deal, CSR will swap 1.1 of its shares for each CNR share. Both companies are listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong. The merged company will be named CRRC Corporation Ltd.

Montreal-based Bombardier recently announced it has won a $484-million US order in Paris for 42 double-deck regional trains, to be used by the Parisian suburban transportation network.