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THE MAGAZINE FOR EUROPEAN RAIL DECISION MAKERS

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behind all major projects in Europe & further afield

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Safety

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SAFETY & POLICY IN RAIL, INTERVIEW WITH MAX FRIEDLI, DIRECTOR, SWISS FEDERAL OFFICE OF TRANSPORT

INTERVIEW - ISSUE 21 - by EURAILmag

SAFETY & POLICY IN RAIL, INTERVIEW Switzerland has one of the most compact and heavily utilised railway networks in Europe. The Federal Office of Transport [FOT] is responsible for ensuring that public transport is safe and efficient. It acts as a technical monitoring and authorisation agency for rolling stock, rail staff and facilities, and adjudicates on network access grants. It also lays down regulations and checks that companies abide by them.

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ASSOCIATED CONTENT

REGULATIONS & VALIDATION FOR ROLLING STOCK
Fire protection is an essential aspect of the safety of rail vehicles. A fire protection concept, which includes a fire risk analysis…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 26 - by M.Sc. Michael Klinger
EUROPEAN NORMS & TSI
European documentation for rail interoperability is organised into three levels. The first two deal with regulations: the first level of the European…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 18 - by Jean-Claude Tourrade, CEN
.ITALO SUCCESS HINGES ON HOMOLOGATION
Tests are underway on the .Italo very high speed train in Italy. “We foresee ending the Pegase [prototype] tests in the autumn…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 22 - by EURAILmag
TU DARMSTADT – RESEARCH, TRAINING & MORE BESIDES
In the field of railway operations, Technische Universität Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt) and its dedicated research centre Eisenbahnbetriebsfeld Darmstadt (EBD) offer a range…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 26 - by Dipl.-Ing. Constanze Streitzig & Dipl.-Inform. Anselmo Stelzer Article expanded and translated by: Dipl.-Ing. Sebastian Schön & Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Ing. Friederike Chu, TU Darmstadt
UNDERSTANDING EN 45545
The next European fire and fumes regulation EN 45545 is coming soon. Currently at a Technical Specification (TS) stage, it should be…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 25 - by EURAILmag
IRIS WIDE OPEN
With more than 450 companies worldwide having completed the scheme, the IRIS ‘seal of quality’ for rail is gaining traction with operators…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 22 - by Bernard Kaufmann general manager, IRIS
GIANT STEPS TOWARDS FIRE SAFETY IN EUROPEAN TRANSPORT
While standardisation is one of the essential supports of EU legislation, and a lot of national legal frameworks have already been transformed…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 21 - by Dave Tooley, Bombardier Transportation
ELECTRICAL CABLES – REGULATIONS & TESTS
Cables are recognised as a critical component when taking fire safety into consideration. Assessing their fire behaviour has been (and still is…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 26 - by Luca Ermini, Laboratorio Prevenzione Incendi (LAPI)
SECUR-ED – INTO THE BREACH
While safety addresses problems caused accidentally, security concerns those caused intentionally. As more people journey, both at home and across borders, and…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 27 - by EURAILmag
EUROPE NEEDS MORE RAILWAY TEST CENTRES
i-Trans is spearheading a project to build Europe’s largest rail test centre in Nord-Pas de Calais. Part of the…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 18 - by EURAILmag
IRIS 320 SETTING SIGHTS ACROSS CHANNEL
Since designing and building its first dedicated track inspection vehicle, SNCF Infra has continued to extend its IRIS 320 platform to stay…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 24 - by EURAILmag
FIRE-RESISTANT COMPOSITE MATERIALS
High-performance composite materials, consisting of reinforced carbon or glass fibres in a polymer resin matrix, are an established technology for producing…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 27 - by EURAILmag
CLIMATIC TEST FACILITY AT CETEMET
A climatic wind tunnel test centre located in the province of Jaén in Andalucía is the only one of its kind in…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 26 - by Marta Ruíz de Lara, CETEMET
‘IN-MOTION’ ULTRASONIC TESTING OF HIGH-SPEED RAIL WHEELS
The tread of railway wheels underlies high load and wear and its integrity is essential for the safety of the whole train…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 20 - by Hans-Juergen Salzburger, Fraunhofer IzfP, Li Wang & Xiaorong Gao, Southwest Jiaotong University
SBB’S CLIMATE CHAMBER OPEN ALL WEATHER
Swiss Rail (SBB) has been operating a climate chamber at its Olten workshop (canton of Solothurn, central Switzerland) since 1978. The facility…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 19 - by Ralf Hofer, SBB Operating
CUSTOMER’S POINT OF VIEW – PHILIPPE CRAUSTE, BOMBARDIER
Philippe Crauste, vice president of group quality at Bombardier Transportation, an IRIS customer, joined the company in November 2011…

INTERVIEW - ISSUE 26 - by René Manschot
SAFETY & POLICY IN RAIL, INTERVIEW WITH MAX FRIEDLI, DIRECTOR, SWISS FEDERAL OFFICE OF TRANSPORT
Switzerland has one of the most compact and heavily utilised railway networks in Europe. The Federal Office of Transport [FOT] is responsible…

INTERVIEW - ISSUE 21 - by EURAILmag
FIRE BEHAVIOUR OF RAILWAY ROLLING STOCK – EUROPE HEADS FOR HARMONISED STANDARD
Today, each country has its own fire standards for the European rolling stock market. All these national specifications and certification programmes define…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 16 - by Sébastien Segura, Patricia Gil & Patrick Lallet, Agence d’Essai Ferroviaire, SNCF
RAIL SAFETY – EPSF SIGNS AND DELIVERS
French rail safety authority EPSF – Etablissement Public de Sécurité Ferroviaire – has spent a busy 2008 making moves to step up and extend…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 18 - by EURAILmag
CENTRE D’ESSAIS FERROVIAIRE & RATP IN THE LOOP
Complex equipment, integration difficulties and growing demands in terms of certification are resulting in increasingly comprehensive test benches designed to meet the…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 20 - by Gerald Churchil, RATP & Jean-Marie Vanzemberg, CEF
RCAS - RAIL COLLISION AVOIDANCE SYSTEM
Researchers at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) are continuing to enhance their Railway Collision Avoidance System* (RCAS), devised to prevent rail accidents…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 23 - by EURAILmag
RAIL TUNNEL SAFETY IN SWEDEN – CROSS ACCEPTANCE OF FOREIGN STANDARDS
In 1990 there were no long railway tunnels in Sweden. When the Government decided to construct new and upgrade existing lines for…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 22 - by Stefan Sollander, Swedish representative, Railway Interoperability and Safety Committee (RISC)
TRIOTRAIN – TOTAL REGULATORY ACCEPTANCE FOR THE INTEROPERABLE NETWORK
The certification of a rail vehicle pursuant to European regulations represents a significant element of both vehicle cost and time-to-market…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 20 - by Martin Couturier (UNIFE), project coordinator, TrioTRAIN
TREADING THE ULTRASONIC PATH
The railway systems business unit at Fraunhofer Institute for non-destructive testing (IZFP), Saarbrücken, develops and supplies equipment and systems for non…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 27 - by EURAILmag
FLAMES AND TRAINS – CONVERGING EUROPEAN STANDARDS
From the start of European rail standardisation at the beginning of the 1990s, priority was given to protecting rolling stock from fire…

ARTICLE - ISSUE 22 - by Jean-Claude Tourrade, consultant, CEN & Serge Métral, head coordinator for standardisation & regulations, SNCF