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Rail Articles

Strong commitment from the Spanish rail industry

26 September 2013 | By Pedro Fortea, Director, MAFEX

As the result of a strong commitment to research and development, the Spanish rail industry has made available to the international market a modern fleet of rolling stock vehicles for all kinds of transportation for both passengers and goods, plus the offering of skilled train maintenance services as well as…

Power quality (and monitoring) in railway systems

26 September 2013 | By Marco Filipe Santos, Head of the Catenary and Electric Traction Department, REFER Engineering S.A

Electrical compatibility between fixed installations and rolling stock, at power supply level, is paramount when dealing with power quality, system availability and reliability. This article addresses power quality and power quality monitoring on alternate current 25 kV electrification systems, focused on overvoltages generated by near resonance frequency harmonics. Theoretical background…

The hub in the Swedish railway system

26 September 2013 | By Maria Jaderholm, Project Manager Railway Operations, Transportstyrelsen

Transportstyrelsen – the Swedish Transport Agency – represents Sweden in the EU and also listens to the demands from the Swedish railway market. In an interview for Global Railway Review, Maria Jäderholm, Project Manager for Railway Operations at the Swedish Transport Agency, reveals that by listening, explaining and creating dialogue…

Putting into action large-scale rail projects

26 September 2013 | By Jan Schönbeck, Director of Purchasing & Logistics, Trafikverket and Camilla Ahston, Procurement Strategist, Purchasing and Logistics, Trafikverket

The first railway in Sweden was built in 1856. Until the beginning of the 20th century, Sweden had a combination of both private and public railways...

Rewarding passengers to gain a competitive edge

26 September 2013 | By Thomas Silbersky, Director of Sales and Marketing Division, SJ

Competition on the Swedish railway is on the rise as new players enter the market. While procured rail traffic was exposed to competition in the early 1990s, the deregulation of commercial domestic traffic first began in 2007 and was only fully deregulated in 2010. Since then, SJ’s competition has grown…

The innovative rail freight corridors are coming to life

26 September 2013 | By Paul Mazataud, Managing Director, Rail Freight Corridor 2 and Deputy Head of Development, RFF

By 10 November 2013, six of the nine rail freight corridors initially foreseen by the EU Regulation 913/2010 concerning a European network for competitive freight will become operational. Rail Freight Corridor 2 (RFC2) is one of them. These corridors are extremely ambitious and will lead to major changes for international…

Bombardier – leading the evolution of mobility with innovative designs

26 September 2013 | By Jon Shaw, Senior Project Director for the AVENTRA platform and the Divisional Head of Engineering for Bombardier Rolling Stock Atlantic & Services

Bombardier Transportation prides itself on offering the broadest product portfolio in the rail industry and delivers innovative products and services that set new standards in sustainable mobility – conserving energy, protecting the environment and improving total train performance for passengers and operators. In an interview for Global Railway Review, Jon…

Understanding the phenomena of train aerodynamics

26 September 2013 | By Chris Baker, Director of the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education

In very broad terms, railway aerodynamic effects increase in severity with the square of the speed of the train – and historically came to become of concern as the speed of passenger trains increased beyond around 100km/h. In the first instance, attention was paid to reducing the aerodynamic drag of…

The Swiss traffic transfer policy gains ground

1 August 2013 | By Peter Füglistaler, Director of the Federal Office of Transport (FOT), Switzerland

One of the principal aims of Swiss transport policy is to transfer transalpine freight traffic from road to rail. This is why Switzerland has built the new flat-bed rail tunnels through the Alps and introduced a road charge for heavy goods vehicles. In order to further support this development, the…

Gotthard and Ceneri base tunnels on target

1 August 2013 | By Renzo Simoni, CEO, AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd

Work on the Gotthard and Ceneri base tunnels is on course. In the Gotthard Base Tunnel between Erstfeld and Sedrun, the ballastless railway track has been laid in both tubes. In total, 45% of the railway infrastructure systems have been installed. A pilot operation between Faido and the south portal…

Tailored timetabling at SBB

1 August 2013 | By Helga Labermeier, Scientific Specialist, Timetable Planning Department, SBB Infrastructure

The Swiss are world champions of rail travel. Every day, approximately 10,000 trains travel on Switzerland’s standard-gauge network which covers just over 3,665km. They take almost a million people to their destinations – safely and punctually – and transport 200,000 tonnes of freight. These impressive figures are unequalled anywhere else…