List view / Grid view
15 September 2006 | By Olle Mornell, Project Manager, Banverket
Covering 440,000km2, Sweden is a relatively large country – approximately the size and shape of California. However, the population is only nine million, which means a density of 20 persons per km2. Approximately 90% of the population lives in the southern third of the country. Sweden is located on the…
15 September 2006 | By Ramon Conde, Marketing and Communications Director, TP Ferro
Historically, the Pyrenees have acted as a natural barrier for the communications between France and Spain, concentrating them at both extremes of the mountain range, through the coastal plains. The increasing cross-border traffic flow has produced consequent traffic congestion. In 1992, the governments of France and Spain started detailed discussions…
15 September 2006 | By Emilio Maestrini, Director of Rolling Stock, Trenitalia
Trenitalia, the transportation company of the Ferrovie dello Stato (State Railways) Group, has been pursuing ambitious investment programmes for a number of years now, with the dual goal of modernising its fleet while guaranteeing its passengers increasingly elevated standards of comfort and safety.
15 September 2006 | By Hans Hödl, Vice President of Sales, Siemens Transportation Systems
The bogies of railway vehicles have become a high-tech component nowadays. At Siemens, they are developed and manufactured for the whole company in a World Centre of Competence for bogies (CoC) in Graz/Austria, where the most modern technical methods are used in development and production. With totally new bogie concepts…
15 September 2006 | By Ricardo Albelda, Engineering Manager, Vossloh España
What is currently Europe’s most powerful diesel-electric locomotive is being presented by Vossloh Transportation Systems for the first time at InnoTrans 2006. Built by Valencia-based Vossloh España, the EURO 4000 is powered by a 16-cylinder two-stroke 3,178-kW engine from Electro-Motive Diesel Inc. (EMD), USA.
15 September 2006 | By James Abbott, Technical Editor
Keeping on top of the condition of your track can pay dividends in terms of improved ride and reduced maintenance bills. Modern monitoring equipment allows engineers to plan predictive maintenance. Europe’s railways are stepping up spending on track testing and monitoring. Traditionally, track maintenance has been reactive: in this case,…
15 September 2006 | By Harald Hotz, Head of Network Access, ÖBB-Infrastruktur Betrieb AG
It is widely known that the railway sector in South Eastern Europe has to handle a lot of challenges since the break-up of former Yugoslavia. Not only do government bodies and railways in the region have to face and accept them, but also their counterparts in the neighbouring countries have…
15 September 2006 | By Mike Jenkins, Director of Rail, Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB)
Today’s relentless pace of change is driving an ever growing demand for fast, safe and reliable travel. But resources are shrinking. Mike Jenkins, PB’s Director of Rail, explains why the world is turning to rail as the key element in an integrated transport solution.
28 July 2006 | By August Zierl, Director of Technology Department, Friedrich Cerny, Signal Engineer and Herbert Müller, Leader of GSM-R Competence Centre, ÖBB-Infrastruktur Bau AG
At the beginning of the 1990s, and due to the occurrence of some heavy accidents, ÖBB began to look for a new train protection system to fit the requirements of an increased traffic capacity on the lines and as a result of this, the necessity to increase safety on the…
28 July 2006 | By Wolfgang Zottl, Project Manager ARGOS, ÖBB-Infrastruktur Bau AG and Dietmar Maicz, Project Manager for Railway Applications, Hottinger Baldwin Messetechnik
In view of free network access, it is important for railway companies to detect the condition (loading, driving stability, out-of-roundness of wheels) of their trains as they run along the track. In 1998, the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) began research in the field of intelligent local measurement. The ARGOS system…
28 July 2006 | By Hansjörg Hess, Head of SBB Infrastructure and member of the Management Board of SBB AG
ETCS has now become fully operational on one of Switzerland’s main lines. Since July 2006, ETCS Level 2 has been activated during the evenings to ensure the safe operation of revenue-earning services on the newly built Mattstetten–Rothrist route. At present, therefore, approximately 20 trains a day are being controlled by…
28 July 2006 | By Philippe Gauderon, Deputy Director of SBB Passenger Traffic Division and Head of SBB Passenger Traffic Division’s Operating Department
Rolling stock maintenance at SBB AG has been affected by a number of trends: increasingly fierce competition, rising pressure on costs, Europe-wide overcapacity, increasingly heavy use of rolling stock with each timetable change, and ever shorter idle periods. Against this backdrop, there is a pressing need to deploy existing resources…
28 July 2006 | By Romeu Costa Reis, Member of the Board, REFER
In the wake of Directive 440/91 CEE, Portugal decided to set up a new model for the railway sector.
28 July 2006 | By Eduardo Frederico, Director of Engineering, RAVE
By decision of the Portuguese Government, a High Speed Transportation System shall be developed which offers both international high-speed and national high-speed train services (passenger and freight) accommodating the increasing requirements for cross-border mobility and which contributes to the strengthening of the economic position and social cohesion, in particular between…
28 July 2006 | By Vicente Gago Llorente, High-speed Technical Coordination Executive Manager, ADIF
On 15 July 2005, the Spanish Government approved the Infrastructure and Transport Strategic Plan 2005-2020 (PEIT). Infrastructure is considered the indispensable support for citizens to have quality transport services, and also an efficient instrument to foster economic development as well as social and territorial cohesion. The PEIT predicts a total…
