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Knorr-Bremse: a system supplierCondition monitoring for running gear

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Editorial

to cope with the constraints encountered in the various regions of the world.

In Europe all the railway networks are now showing the effects of Decision no. 1692/96/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 1996 on Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network and the amendments to it since then. We publish a contribution from the Slovak Republic, one of the youngest members of the Euro-pean Union, which is making a noteworthy financial contribution to upgrading that country’s railway network.

In Germany the partly upgraded and partly new Nuremberg–Ebensfeld–Erfurt railway line is one of the major projects in the trans-European railway network. It was back in May 1994 that this project was presented by Deutsche Bahn AG to the Euro-pean Commission in the framework of the so-called Christo-phersen group. In this edition of RTR we include a report on the viaducts being built on this line. Other articles tackle technical questions and recent developments in civil engineering.

Finally, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are pleased to inform you about a new development that was also triggered by the inter-operability directive. The question examined here is how to put into practice the requirement contained in the TSI relating to rolling stock for the high-speed rail system (HS RS TSI) for there to be onboard equipment for monitoring the correct function-ing of trains’ running gear. Our report deals specifically with a monitoring system called Comoran developed by Knorr-Bremse, which is, in addition, eminently suitable for capturing data for condition-based maintenance. Train operators who have such information available to them are able to bring down the costs of maintaining their running gear and thus its life-cycle costs too. There are sound economic grounds for recommending use of this system in other railway vehicles too.

This new edition of our magazine starts with an interview, which our reporter, Dagmar Rees, conducted with Dr. Dieter Wilhelm, a Member of the Executive Board of Knorr-Bremse AG. Knorr is one of only a handful of European companies to have been suc-cessful with their products in Japan – in its specific case with brake systems for Shinkansen trains.

Japan has traditionally been a more or less impenetrable mar-ket with pretty unique characteristics. That was historically conditioned by the strong position of the former state railway, Japan National Railways (JNR). To cite the March 2008 edition of “Railway Technology Avalanche”, a magazine published by the Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI), JNR itself held almost all the relevant technologies for the railway sector in Japan. It is quite manifest that the use of these technologies, which had been developed by Japanese companies precisely for JNR, was always demanded in detail.

Even after the Japanese railway reform (1 April 1987), this culture initially persisted. It is only gradually that things now seem to be changing, as is borne out by the example of Knorr-Bremse. A changed mindset is a sine qua non for the global railway market.

The tendering process practised in Europe is totally different on account of the disparate roles of the railway operating compa-nies (whose invitations to tender are functional) and the manu-facturers (who carry out their own technological development). Technical specifications for interoperability (TSIs) came into be-ing as a consequence of the Treaty establishing the European Union (Maastricht, 11 December 1991) and Council Directive 96/48/EC of 23 July 1996 on the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system. In the time that has elapsed since then, numerous European standards have been adopted to underpin the TSIs. They have stimulated an impressive array of technological innovations.

Once all is said and done, the railways have fundamentally the same job to do wherever they are in the world, even though there are regional differences in matters of detail. The first ar-ticle in this RTR analyses the structure of long-distance pas-senger transport by rail and the train systems used. Naturally, it does not fail to address the adaptations that need to be made

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Eberhard JänschEditor-in-chiefDear Readers,

(Prof. Dr.-Ing. Eberhard Jänsch)

Best regards,

RTR 1/20134

ContentsRTR 1/2013

3Eberhard JänschEditorial

6Dieter WilhelmWe are a system supplier

8Günter Koch Ottmar GreinMarkets and system developments in rail-guided passenger transport

13Libor IžvoltJán BušovskyJán ŠpánikModernisation of the railway infrastructure in the Slovak Republic

20Wolfgang FeldwischOlaf DrescherMike FlügelViaducts on the new railway line between Ebensfeld and Erfurt

26Christoph DauberschmidtRepairing concrete bridges

32Hubert GreubelMax Bögl concrete slabs for switches and crossings

13 20

36Werner KochElastic rail pads with a long service life

39Mirko DoldStefan PotocanLong-term behaviour of Sylomer® ballast mats

42Marc-Oliver HerdenUlf FriesenCOMORAN – Condition monitoring for railway applications

47Buyer's Guide

51DIN | FSF Standardisation report 1/13

Briefly from Around the World:

Railway frost prevention – an essential factor for mobility p. 55 VEL-Wagon selected to be the Best Green Corridor Project p. 56 Lucchini launched new book at InnoTrans p. 56 Tognum to introduce Tier 3/ULEL p. 57 Trans-portation Ticketing Award 2013 for innovative smartcard p. 57 First Alister SIL2 in operation p. 57

32

42

Front cover:

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Rail Service directly from the manufacturerThe best treatment for your rails.

Rail-Road-Truck SF02-FS-Truck

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March 2013 | Volume 53

Euro 25,– | 13914


ISSN 1869-7801

1|2013


RTRROLLING STOCK

Knorr-Bremse: a system supplierCondition monitoring for running gear

INFRASTRUCTURE

Semi-integral viaductsRepairing concrete bridgesConcrete slabs, rail pads and ballast mats

RAILWAY DEVELOPMENT

System developments in rail-guided passenger transportInfrastructure modernisation in Slovakia

Any questions? Please contact Sven Reinke

Telephone: +49 (40) 237 14 - 355E-mail: [email protected]


RTRTOPICS

RTR 2/13

Trade fair issue to

iaf, 28.5. - 30.5.13, Muenster,

60th UITP World Congress incl Suissetraffic, 26.5. - 30.5.13, Geneva,

WTC World Tunnel Congress, 31.5. - 7.6.13, Geneva

Publication-date: 21.5.13

Ad-deadline: 22.4.13

RTR 3/13

Trade fair issue to

TRAKO 2013, 24.9. - 27.9.13, Gdansk

Nordic Rail 2013, 10.10. - 12.10.13, Jönköping



Country Features

RTR China

Trade fair issue to

CRTS, 28.4. - 30.4.13, Shanghai

Rail & Metro, 10.6. - 13.6.13, Shanghai



RTR Russia

Trade fair issue to

Expo 1520, 7.9. - 10.9.13, Scherbinka

Intern.Wheel Set Conference, 22.9. - 27.9.13, Kiew



RTR 1/20136

Australia, the freight-wagon market is cur-rently experiencing a boom, thanks to the output of the iron mines, and several new large-scale local public-transport projects are coming to fruition there too.

Which are the weaker markets?As far as the Middle East is concerned, our view of the situation has recently become less euphoric. Those projects that we saw emerging five years ago are now becoming reality, but at a very much slower rate and on a smaller scale. In North America there has been strong growth in freight in 2012, but we reckon that we are now more likely to be heading for a period of stagnation. New emission provisions are going to apply to diesel locomotives over there from 2015 onwards. A pre-buying effect is to be expect-ed, reaching its peak in 2014. So, for 2015, our assumption is that there will be a down-turn, at least to begin with. In China the rate of growth has slowed down in recent years, but it still remains a rather important market for us. Developments in southern Europe are now more sluggish than we had been forecasting up until a few years ago, as a result of the financial crisis.

What are the key innovation issues for you and how are you putting them into practice?Low life-cycle costs are the be-all and end-all for us. We are working on reducing masses, improving availability and develop-ing compact designs. Other points for us are the integration of mechanical and elec-tronic parts to form mechatronic elements and also sustainability, environmental pro-tection and reductions in emissions.Let me give you one example. For one of the biggest growth markets, Russia, we have developed a control valve for wagons that functions at temperatures down to minus 60 degrees Celsius. Currently, we are try-ing it out on five wagons, and it is working perfectly. We have invested several million euros in development, including a test rig complying with the Russian standards. Con-sider that there are about a million wagons on the Russian market. We are now able to offer a product that is very considerably bet-ter than the valves that have been available on that market previously in terms of both life-cycle costs and maintenance intervals.

Dr. Wilhelm, how did InnoTrans turn out for you?Compared with the preceding InnoTrans, we had even more customers from Asia and the USA in Berlin in 2012 and thus the op-portunity of presenting our system thinking, of introducing new products and of making sales. At the fair itself, JR East signed the contract with us for equipping the new E7 Shinkansen, and, a week later, JR West did the same for the W7. We managed to con-clude orders with several other customers too, such as a general agreement with Voith concerning 500 locomotives for Russia. Following on from the E5 platform, we got the order about a year ago to deliver the bogie equipment for the Shinkansen E6 systems. Thanks to the positive experience with our products, we have now secured the order to supply further systems for 17 plus 10 trains, each containing ten motorised elements, forming part of the new E7/W7 platforms. Our long-standing ties with our Japanese customers have thus paid divi-dends. We have spent more than four years together, developing our products, perform-ing tests in the laboratory and on roller test rigs and building prototype trains. Given the good results, the two Japanese railways have decided in favour of our systems.

Knorr-Bremse’s motto is “Efficient. Technology. Worldwide”. What does “Efficient” mean to you?The motto brings together various themes that are of relevance for Knorr-Bremse and indeed for the whole railway-vehicle indus-try. Wherever large numbers of goods and passengers are transported, that must be done efficiently, safely and in an environ-mentally friendly manner. For more than a hundred years, Knorr-Bremse has pursued the development of brakes and other safe-ty-relevant systems and intends to continue to do so in future. “Efficient” for us has various facets to it. As cost pressure mounts still further, more and more attention is turning to life-cycle costs. Our products are developed applying the yardsticks of “low mass” and “compact design”, with a view to achieving energy savings. Low wear and a long service life bring life-cycle costs down still further. New products, such as the LEADER driver assis-tance system, are capable of achieving an

energy saving of up to 15 % in operations. A further issue for us is sustainability and en-vironmental protection. That is why we offer systems like the oil-free compressor.

And: “Technology. Worldwide”?“Technology” stands for Knorr-Bremse’s innovative drive and technological lead-ership. The top priorities here are safety and quality. “Worldwide” is an expression of the fact that Knorr-Bremse is now rep-resented in nearly every country of the world. It signals our capacity always to of-fer the required local content to vehicle manufacturers and system houses all over the world, whether in South Africa, North America, Scandinavia, Japan or Australia. We are able, for instance, to provide sup-port in obtaining approvals for systems. We are the only manufacturer to possess test rigs for all the standards applied around the world – UIC, ARA, AAR and GOST. That is a unique advantage that we are able to offer our customers. When we speak of coopera-tion, we don’t just mean the one-off delivery of a product, but accompaniment provided throughout the whole life cycle of a vehicle.

What is your view of likely market ten-dencies over the next five years?As a group, we have achieved sales of more than a billion euros in each of our regions for the first time ever in the course of the year 2011, giving us total sales in excess of four billion euros. That puts us in a favour-able position to face the future. Our work-ing assumption is a mean market growth of 3-4% per annum. Of course, there are going to be huge regional differences. One country with strong growth is Russia. We have been very successful there in equip-ping passenger coaches, supplying air-con-ditioning plant and fitting our new valve for freight wagons. For Kazakhstan we are now delivering systems for up to 495 locomo-tives. India is another vigorous growth mar-ket. We are going to grow strongly in freight transport through the introduction of our modern technologies. In the passenger seg-ment, we are expecting growth in metro sys-tems. South Africa is another country with massive plans, for instance Prasa’s project for approximately 7000 coaches and a fur-ther project stretching over the next twenty years for more than 1000 locomotives. In

We are a system supplier

Knorr-Bremse has achieved very considerable acceleration in its rate of growth in recent years. Shortly after the InnoTrans international trade fair for transport technology (Berlin, September 2012), a member of Knorr’s Executive Board, Dr. Dieter Wilhelm, gave us his views on markets and innovations.

RTR 1/2013 7

Interview

What are you doing to react to cost pressure in local public transport?We are optimising our products to lower life-cycle costs. We also offer customised ser-vicing and maintenance packages for the whole lifespan of our products and, through these, we make sure that the products work safely for thirty years and even longer. Re-cently, we fitted modern sanding systems to the whole fleet of S-Bahn trains in Berlin. Monitoring its proper functioning has now become completely automatic. A further example is the retrofitting of oil-free compressors, which are much less expensive to operate. Our LEADER driver assistance software, which proposes en-ergy-saving driving patterns, uses real data captured from railway lines and is able to achieve instant savings.

Knorr-Bremse is well known for brake systems. Today, you have a number of products in your portfolio that have nothing to do with brakes any more. We have a relatively large share of the brake market worldwide. So we have been considering other areas in which we could possibly add safety-relevant products to our portfolio. It is already many years ago that we decided to go for doors. Doors are indeed a safety-relevant product. We have also seen how important it is to have prop-erly functioning air-conditioning equipment. Think of long hot summers – not only in Ger-many, but in countries with high air humidity or where the climatic conditions are persis-tently hot, like in Saudi Arabia. Safety-relevant matters form the core of our product portfolio. That also includes our simulation software. We have highly sophis-ticated systems and are able to simulate the most difficult weather and traffic conditions. By being able to give drivers training of this nature, we contribute to enhanced safety at the same time as bringing down costs.

We are soon going to conclude a joint ven-ture in Russia for this wagon valve. I could tell you similar stories for other re-gions too. Take India, for instance. There we have developed special brake systems with higher energy efficiency and lower life-cycle costs. They have enabled us to achieve higher sales and very appreciable growth in recent years. In the field of noise abate-ment, we have not only been working on qui-eter brake pads, but have also given consid-eration to the fact that the principal noise is due to the moving train and not to the brakes themselves. Our brake blocks have a positive influence on the wheels’ running surface and thus on noise abatement. We have developed special low-noise pads for high-speed operations too, and these have been installed, for example, on the NTV’s new “Italo” train. To some extent, it is pos-sible to diminish noise very considerably by adapting the geometry of a brake disc, thereby modifying the air flow and reducing air resistance. We have done that, for in-stance, on the Japanese Shinkansen.

Dieter Wilhelm (Photo: Enno Kapitza)

VITA

Dieter Wilhelm Member of the Executive Board

of Knorr-Bremse AG

Dr. rer. nat. Dieter Wilhelm studied law and chemistry at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He obtained his doctorate in 1984 and went on to conduct research at University College in London. Dr. Wilhelm began his career in industry at Siemens, where he was in charge of a development laboratory, quality assurance and a factory producing air-conditioning units for automo-biles. In his last position with that company, he was responsible for multiple units. In 1999, Dr. Wilhelm moved to the Knorr-Bremse group as chief executive of Knorr-Bremse Systeme für Schienenfahrzeuge GmbH. Since 2003, he has been a member of the Executive Board of Knorr-Bremse AG with responsibility for the Rail Vehicle Systems division.

(Abridged version of the interview published in German in ETR 11-2012; the interview was conducted by Dag-mar Rees, DVV.)

RTR 1/20138

Project Manager, Passenger Transport Systems

DB International GmbH, Karlsruhe, Germany

[email protected]

Dipl.-Ing. Günter Koch

es, bottlenecks in road capacity are threat-ening to stifle economic development. For that reason, transport by rail is experienc-ing a renaissance all around the world.

As this happens, it is clear that the main focus of transport supply must be on cus-tomers and what they want, but at the same time operations must make economic sense. It is also essential to give due con-sideration to the never-ending changes in the target groups as regards mobility behav-iour, travel distances and life habits as well as demographic trends.

1 Public transport

Public transport has a vast range of trans-port systems available to it (Fig. 1). Of these, it is the bus systems that dominate the market as regards transport volumes and comprehensive geographic coverage. When other parameters are brought into play, however, such as capacities, speed and efficiency, rail-guided systems usually have the edge. That includes rail-based sys-tems whose guidance is either mechanical or magnetic. The commonest of these sys-tem are wheel-on-rail ones. These can be divided into “heavy” rail systems for high-speed, long-distance and short-distance trains and “light” rail systems, including trams, (urban) light-rail vehicles and met-ros. Numerous special types are to be found operating over short distances, such as rubber-tyred ones running on concrete or steel guideways, automated people movers, suspended monorails and maglev railways (such as Transrapid in Shanghai).

At the design stage of new passenger-trans-port systems, it is crucial to understand the nature of the transport market to be served in deciding on which system is going to be able to achieve the optimum transport and economic performance. This decision ought not to be taken until after a thorough dis-cussion. If, on the other hand, the planning process is used as a pretext for justifying a system determined in advance, the out-come is not always going to be the best-

Depending on how the economy develops, mobility changes both quantitatively and qualitatively. From the middle of the 19th century onwards, the railways have made mobility into a real possibility for broad seg-ments of the population. As a system, the railway has undergone continuous further developments, resulting in a finely meshed railway world. The railway monopoly, how-ever, came to an end approximately a cen-tury ago, as more and more motorcars ap-peared unstoppably on the scene. A little later, air travel evolved too. There are some

regions of the world, such as Europe and Japan, where the railway still presents a finely meshed network for passenger trans-port, while there are others, such as North America, where this form of transport has hardly any role left to play outside of the major conurbations.

Capacity bottlenecks and environmental harm related to road and air transport have in the recent past shown up the develop-ment limits of these carriers in many parts of the world. In the fast-growing metropolis-

Markets and system developments in rail-guided passenger transport

The way people are transported is an ever-changing process – and that applies to the railway systems too. If anything, this process of change has sped up in recent years. The authors of this report present an overview of the markets for rail-guided forms of transport and the various systems that exist.

Senior High-Speed-Rail Consultant

DB International GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

[email protected]

Dipl.-Ing. Ottmar Grein

Fig. 1: Selection of passenger-transport systems (diagram: the authors)

RTR 1/2013 9


route like a string of beads. That does not always ensure competitive journey times. Regional-express trains leaving out the less important stops may be added as an ad-ditional element in the overall service, of-fering shorter journey times. In Germany,

forms of long-distance service, such as night and motorrail trains. Passengers us-ing long-distance trains generally demand a level of comfort and convenience that makes it pleasant to spend several hours onboard a train, including such aspects as the availability of a catering service and sufficient space for storing larger items of luggage. The end-to-end speed must stand up to a direct intermodal comparison with travel by air or motorcar, and what counts in the end is always going to be the door-to-door time.

2.2 Regional transport

Regional transport or local passenger trans-port by rail involves movements beyond the purely urban setting. German legislation de-fines “local public transport” as those trips that cover a total distance of less than 50 km or require a total travel time of not more than one hour.

Regional transport can take on exceedingly different appearances. The predominant practice is to serve all the stops along a

possible economic solution. One positive example of this process at work has been the strategic approach to considering the new railway systems in the Middle East. In Qatar, for instance, the discussion consid-ered whether it would be more favourable for short-distance passenger trains to use the same tracks as long-distance trains, in a similar arrangement to the AC S-Bahn systems in Germany or for metro and long-distance networks to be kept completely apart. In the case of Abu Dhabi too, the de-bate is still continuing as regards the roles to be assigned to LRT and metros and also to short-distance and long-distance “heavy” rail.

In Germany as well, the “system issue” keeps returning to the agenda. A topical example is the Neckar-Alb region around the main poles of Tübingen and Reutlingen, for which a concept is being developed with a sophisticated mix of urban light rail and heavy rail, building further on the experi-ence accumulated with regional light-rail systems in and around cities like Karlsruhe and Kassel. Decisions are made easier if it is possible to tap into the long experience of operators or consultants, such as DB In-ternational GmbH.

Travellers are always concerned about get-ting from door to door (the route from their starting point to their destination). Their choice of a mode of transport depends on the purpose of their journey and thus on the circumstances associated with it. Apart from travel time and costs, a third criterion is also of importance to them, namely com-fort and convenience (Fig. 2).

2 Markets in rail-guided transport

Rail-guided passenger transport needs to take a clear stance on the requirements of the part-markets of long-distance, regional and urban travel (Fig. 3). It is not always possible to provide a clear-cut definition and to draw clear demarcation lines be-tween them. Many of the classifications commonly used simply adopt the names that happen to have been given to train types rather than seriously considering the actual transport functions.

2.1 Long-distance transport

Long-distance passenger transport in Ger-many is understood to be travel over a dis-tance of greater than 50 km. The products the railways offer in this segment in Central Europe include the Intercity-Express (ICE), Thalys, Train à grande vitesse (TGV), Euro-star, Railjet, EuroCity (EC) and InterCity (IC). For the purposes of the Technical Specifica-tions for Interoperability (TSIs), high-speed rail transport is taken to mean a speed of at least 250 km/h. There are also special

Fig. 2: The long-distance traveller(diagram: E. Jänsch/DB, in: Die Bundesbahn vol. 9, 1988, p. 805)

Motor-car?

Time budget?

Family members?

Comfort ex-pectations?

Image constraints?

Travel costs?

Profes-sional

function?

Door-to-door trip?

Fig. 3: Transport markets(diagram: the authors)

Long-distance transport

Urban transport

Regional transport

Fig. 4: Network structures (diagram: the authors)

(A) Point-to-point linke.g.: high-speed line

(B) Central nodal zonee.g.: French network

(C) Corridore.g.: London or Madrid

(D) Radial or star-shaped networke.g.: metro

(E) Universal star-shaped networke.g.: former DB IC network or metro

(F) Composite networke.g.: German ICE network today

(G) Backbone networke.g.: Munich S-Bahn

RTR 1/201310


the “S-Bahns” are generally taken to form part of the regional transport supply. Ex-amples of German regions where this is the case are Rhine-Ruhr, Rhine-Neckar and Leipzig-Halle. Many S-Bahn routes, however, simultaneously assume functions that fall, strictly speaking, under the heading of ur-ban transport.

2.3 Urban transport

Urban transport covers the services on of-fer within uninterrupted built-up areas. It is characterised by marked commuter (in-and-out) movements but also by heavy traffic within the area. This requires the provision of large transport capacities, often com-bined with very short headways, down to a minimum of 90 seconds.

Fig. 6: Graphic timetable of the Tokaido Shinkansen (diagram: the authors)

Fig. 5: Optimum distances between stations (diagram: the authors)

Optimum route length [km]Optimum spacing between stops [km]

Range of optimum route lengths

Legend

Range of optimum distances between

stops

Tram / LRT

People mover

Tram-train

Metro

S-Bahn

Regional railways. I

Regional railways. II- e.g. RegionalExpress

Long-distance railways. I- e.g.: InterRegio (Express)

Long-distance railways. IIe.g.: InterCity

High-speed / new technologies- e.g.: InterCityExpress

This segment includes trams, urban light rail vehicles and metros as well as some of the S-Bahn operations in Germany (for instance in Berlin or Hamburg). The back-bone lines of the S-Bahn networks in Mu-nich, Stuttgart and Frankfurt fulfil important urban-transport functions too.

3 Competition

Passenger transport by rail-guided systems is one of many transport alternatives, with a blend of advantages and disadvantages inherent in the system.

Particular strengths of railway systems in-clude:

� high transport capacity, � high scheduled speeds, � high reliability, thanks to separate tracks,� scalability of the transport units (train

capacity),� high safety standards, and� a more benign impact on the environ-

ment than road or air transport.

These strengths are offset by a number of weaknesses:

� high infrastructure costs for initial acqui-sition and partly for operation too,

� operations restricted to corridors, and� operations tied to a timetable.

To date, competitive structures for the sup-ply of transport services have only really come into being within the regional seg-ment. As far as long-distance transport in Europe is concerned, initial steps have been taken towards offering competing ser-vices as commercial ventures. Examples of this are the Westbahn in Austria (since December 2011) and Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori (NTV) in Italy.

4 Transport networks and operations

In the past, the way in which railway net-works developed was determined by vari-ous different parameters. The railway net-works of the countries of Central Europe are finely meshed. Compared with that, the national railway network in France evolved in a radial pattern with a focus on Paris. The same applies to the United Kingdom, where routes converge on London. Depend-ing on the nature of the country and what it requires of transport, the railway networks for long-distance and regional services may have different shapes. A selection of typical network-structure topologies is illustrated in Fig. 4. Network structures and opera-tional concepts are the consequence of the volume of the transport demand and its breakdown.

Generally speaking, the properties of exist-ing systems were defined in the past. That includes line layouts, clearances, gradients, command, control and safety systems and the fleet of rolling stock. It calls for a huge outlay to make changes to existing infrastructures. New systems, on the oth-er hand, can be optimised in terms meet today’s requirements and boundary condi-tions. Figure 5 illustrates one such parame-ter, namely the optimum distances between stops for the various train systems.

Railway networks also play their part in meeting the political goals for land use. A compromise is to be found in those opera-tional concepts that combine trains with dif-ferent stopping patterns on a single route. Sprinter services are interspersed with trains that stop more frequently. A tangible

RTR 1/2013 11


International Exhibitionon Track Technology

28th-30th May 2013 in Münster

70 – 100 km/h, and S-Bahns and similar ur-ban or suburban regional-express systems reach between 100 and 140 km/h. At the top end of this speed scale are the very fast high-speed trains, which are rated to run at 300 km/h and even faster.

6 Infrastructure

6.1 Track

The use of the railway infrastructure by both passenger and freight trains (the principle of mixed traffic) was one of the underly-ing features of railway traffic from the very beginning, with the consequence that the infrastructure was arranged to be able to cope with this. It starts with the system of signals and also explains such matters as infrastructure gauges, maximum permitted speeds, track radii and gradients as well as the design of passing loops.

The divergent demands of passenger trans-port for high speeds and of freight transport for high axle loads are making it necessary to rethink attitudes towards separate net-works. Deutsche Bahn’s new dedicated passenger line between Cologne and Frank-

provide a high level of adhesion with the rail. Distributing the traction elements as in a multiple unit is particularly advanta-geous where there are short distances between stops and steep gradients, and multiple units also have lower axle loads. They are, moreover, capable of faster ac-celeration, since a greater proportion of the train mass rests on the driven axles. The big advantage of double-deck trains, which are already in widespread use for local ser-vices and are becoming increasingly com-mon for long-distance services too, is that they have a higher transport capacity for the same train length.

How a fleet of trains is put together depends on the market requirements and the avail-able infrastructure. Many different traction concepts are to be found on the railways. These range from locomotive-hauled rakes of individual coaches (conventional Inter-City trains in Germany, Railjet in Austria and various regional operators) through train sets with end power cars (ICE 1 and ICE 2, Eurostar and TGV Duplex) to multiple units (Shinkansen, various CRH classes, ICE 3, AGV, Deutsche Bahn’s S-Bahns and metros and urban light rail vehicles). They are il-lustrated in Fig. 7. The maximum speeds of light-rail and metro systems are around

example of this is to be seen in the timeta-ble for the high-speed line between Tokyo and Shin Osaka (Fig. 6). The operator uses three different train types with very different spaces between the stations served.

5 Vehicles

Locomotive-hauled trains used to consti-tute the standard configuration for the transport of passengers for many decades. It is an arrangement in which the totality of the traction power is concentrated in a single vehicle. That may well have made sense in the age of steam, but it has been generally rendered obsolete by modern die-sel and electric drives. Trains comprised of individual coaches still maintain the advan-tage of extensive flexibility, in that a rake can quickly be made longer or shorter to handle fluctuating capacity requirements. Rakes of coaches also have advantages when repairs are needed, in that only the damaged vehicles need to be taken out of service, and it is not necessary to immobi-lise whole trains.

The high axle loads of locomotives and end power cars (of up to 22.5 tonnes in Europe)

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Fig. 7: Train and traction concepts taking the example of long-distance services

(*) Drive concept for metros and regional railways too(**) Drive concept for LRT, metros and regional railways too(diagram: the authors, with photographs courtesy of DB AG, Alstom and Siemens)

Locomotive-hauled rake of (individual) coaches

Not reversibleseparable anywhere

e.g.: IC, EC and night trains

Locomotive-hauled rake of (individual) coaches with push-pull capability

separable anywhere

e.g.: IC, EC

Multiple unit with individual coaches and one end power car

separable in a depot(to change lengths)

- e.g.: ICE 2

Multiple unit with individual coaches and two end power carsseparable in a depot(to change lengths)- e.g.: ICE 1

Multiple unit with individual cars (*)

inseparable

- e.g.: ICE 3

Articulated multiple unit (**)

inseparable

- e.g.: AGV

Articulated train set with power car(s)

inseparable

- e.g.: TGV POS

Legend

Non-driving trailer

Driving trailer

End power car

Intercar gangway (separable)

Intercar gangway (articulation)

Locomotive

furt is a successful attempt to break free from historically imposed constraints. How-ever, the only trains that can use this line are those that have suitable traction and braking systems for it.

6.2 Passenger stations

Stations have often been called the visiting cards of the towns and cities they serve. As the starting and finishing points of railway journeys, they are also the railway’s show-case too. For the customers, they are the interface to the railway as a system. Rail-way stations are more than just platforms; they include concourses with information, shopping and waiting facilities as well as miscellaneous services for customers. The

“station square” belongs to the station, providing, inter alia, interchanges with local public transport and private motor vehicles.

The useful lengths of the platforms depend on the maximum length of the train configu-rations used. In Germany, the range is from a minimum of 70 m for short S-Bahn multi-ple units to 400 m for interoperable high-speed trains running in the trans-European network. Where there are specific needs, a number of networks have even longer plat-forms.

6.3 Storage sheds and maintenance centres

Regular maintenance of rolling stock is

an essential precondition for ensuring the safety and reliability of trains. Storage sheds and maintenance centres form an in-tegral part of the railway infrastructure. Over the years there have been radical changes in the way these work. It used to be the case in the past that the trains were uncou-pled into individual vehicles, each one of which needed only a short storage space, whereas the modern practice is to service trains as complete units. This calls for cor-respondingly larger buildings and longer lengths of track. The fast work rate of mod-ern maintenance installations means that fewer such facilities are required, and trains are processed in shorter periods of time. Furthermore, it is possible to reduce fleet sizes considerably.

7 Concluding remarks

The diversity of the transport markets (short-distance, regional and long-distance) and the particularities of the many differ-ent regions around the world and the peo-ple who live in them make it necessary to adopt specific approaches in facing up to the challenges of quantities, quality and economics. In each individual case, the particular focus must always be on the cus-tomer and affordability; technology will have to adapt to the requirements as formulated and must never be allowed to become an end in its own right.

Development never stands still. The mas-sive experience that Deutsche Bahn has built up with passenger-transport systems in Germany has also influenced projects of varying categories all around the world in which DB International GmbH has been involved – from new high-speed systems in China, South Korea and Taiwan to the integrated rail-transport concept for Qatar, but also taking in the metros in Mecca and Abu Dhabi and the planned S-Bahn in Rio de Janeiro.

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Head of the department of railway engineering and track management

Žilina University, Slovak Republic

[email protected]

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Libor Ižvolt

Production directorProdex spol. s.r.o., Bratislava, Slovak Republic

[email protected]

Dr.-Ing. Ján Bušovsky

line, Bratislava – Zvolen – Košice, has not yet been electrified, and

� continuous reduction in the number of in-dustrial sidings and even abandonment of them altogether. A number of new lo-gistic and industrial centres have no rail-way connection at all.

Despite the reduction in the charges for transport by rail that took effect on 1 Janu-ary 2011 (of around 50 % for freight) and the introduction of road tolls, shipping goods by rail remains economically unattractive for businesses, since it is still 1.5 to 2-times more expensive as road transport.

The railway infrastructure in der Slovak Re-public (SR) has a history of more than 170 years behind it and in that time it has lived through incredibly different economic, politi-cal and strategic situations. Its present-day state can be summarised as follows:

� a relatively dense network of railway lines and stations,

� very good accessibility of the principal conurbations and industrial concentra-tions,

� adequate network capacity, and� good interconnections with the railway

network of the European Union (EU), in-cluding good access to and from interna-tional corridors.

Here are the vital statistics of the network operated by the Railways of the Slovak Republic (ŽSR) as at 31 December 2011 (Fig. 1 [1]):

� total length of railway lines: 3622 kilo-metres, – of these: 2607 km of single track and

1015 km of double or multiple track, – of the same total: 3473 km of track

with a gauge of 1435 mm, 99 km of broad gauge (1520 mm) and 50 km of narrow gauge

� 65 independent stations and 727 other stations (including halts),

� 8544 points (i. e. switches and cross-ings),

� 2285 bridges, � 76 tunnels (total length: 43.5 km), and� 2219 level crossings.

1 Quality of the existing railway infrastructure

The Slovak Republic has an extensive rail-way infrastructure at present, but its per-formance is poor, and it is unattractive for several reasons:

� gradual degradation of key parameters (speeds, permissible axle loads, length of passing tracks, restricted clearance gauge for exceptional cargoes and tech-nically obsolete safety equipment),

� inadequate electrification (43.5 %). In particular, the second most important

Modernisation of the railway infrastructure in the Slovak Republic

An extensive programme for upgrading the railway infrastructure is underway in the Slovak Republic. Its most important element is improving Pan-European Corridor Va. Preparations are also underway for building new transhipment terminals for combined transport.

Director, Žilina branchReming Consult a.s.Žilina, Slovak Republic

[email protected]

Dipl.-Ing. Ján Špánik

Fig. 1: Present-day railway infrastructure in the Slovak Republic (source: [1])

Legend

Category I: Main linesCategory II: Southern line and broad-gauge lineCategory III: Other linesCategory IV: Regional lines

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3 Upgrading measures

According to [2], modernisation of the ŽSR’s railway lines is to include:

� reconstruction of the track substructure and superstructure, including all bridges and passages;

� rearrangement of all the station plat-forms along the modernised line sec-tions. Passengers are to be able to board trains from a platform alongside the stopping track closest to the through track. The new platform height is to be 550 mm relative to the top edge of the rail. In stations where express trains stop as well, the platforms are to have a length of 400 m and in all the other stations of 250 m, and there is to be at least one step-free access to each of them,

� capacity improvements in station throats by installing fast crossovers between tracks as well as switches and crossings for entering and leaving stopping tracks with turnout speeds of at least 80 km/h,

� complete replacement of the safety and telecommunications equipment,

� new installations for the supply of elec-tricity,

� replacement of level crossings with bridges over or under the railway line, and

� erection of noise barriers in those plac-es where noise levels exceed the pre-scribed limits.

Increasing train speeds to 160 or 200 km/h involves major challenges as regards the line layout and the track quality. In many cases, the railway lines that exist at present do not satisfy these requirements. Many lines are going to have to be rerouted and placed on a completely new substructure. There are in future to be virtually no level crossings with railways and roads, with oc-casional exceptions permitted where the railway speed is less than 160 km/h. Many roads and rivers are going to need to be di-verted to achieve this. Given Slovak geogra-phy, the upgraded lines are frequently going to have to be rerouted through new tunnels.

One of the main features of the moderni-sation programme is the total conversion of the catenary system from direct current (3 kV) to alternating current (25 kV). The substations are going to be rebuilt, the elec-tric lighting is going to be redesigned and electric heating is going to be installed on switches and crossings.

The modernised lines are being equipped with new telecommunication equipment, which can also handle data. It is intended to operate the entire railway telecommuni-cation network digitally in future.

It goes without saying that noise-abatement measures are also being envisaged for the modernised ŽSR lines. Noise maps are al-ready being drawn up during the preliminary

tislava. The ŽSR is affected by this route with the sections ÖBB Kittsee/Bratislava-Petržalka and ÖBB Marchegg/ŽSR Devínska Nová Ves as well as by having Bratislava as a major junction.

� Priority axis 23 of the TEN-T: – Gdansk – Warszawa – Brno/Brat is - lava (Zwardon PKP/ŽSR Skalité – Cadca – Žilina – Nové Mesto nad Váhom).

The ŽSR started modernisation work on the international railway corridors on its network back in 1994. The aim is not only to bring them up to the required technical level but also to facilitate better access to the trans-European network for transport (TEN-T) and the networks of its neighbour-ing countries. Modernisation of the railway routes must respect the technical require-ments laid down in two key international agreements, the AGC (European Agree-ment on Main International Railway Lines) and the AGTC (European Agreement on Im-portant International Combined Transport Lines and Related Installations). It must also comply with the interoperability criteria of the European Union’s railway system.

At the same time, the comfort and conveni-ence of the travelling public ought also to be improved, namely through:

� improving the geometric parameters of the tracks,

� rearranging station buildings,� rebuilding platforms to give them suf-

ficient length and step-free access for persons with disabilities, and

� deployment of modern rolling stock.

Furthermore, safety is to be enhanced by the elimination of level crossings and the modernisation of safety installations. This is to be accompanied by reductions in the outlay on personnel and maintenance, which will also have a positive impact on the ŽSR’s operating budget.

The European Union’s transport policy as presented in the white paper and the leg-islative activities that have followed it are aimed at promoting transport by rail and at improving its competitiveness compared with the other modes of transport. Improv-ing safety and interoperability are two of the main pillars of the integrated European rail-way area. Viewed from this perspective, it is clearly the duty of the ŽSR to see its stra-tegic investment projects through to a suc-cessful conclusion and to influence trans-port policy in such a way that the railway system is able to fulfil its transport tasks on the territory of the Slovak Republic.

2 Pan-European corridors, Trans-European Network for Transport and network improvements

Modernisation of the railway infrastructure in the Slovak Republic fits in well with the European Union’s transport policy. The country is endeavouring to make the most out of its geographic position and to inte-grate the most important railway routes in with the pan-European railway corridors as defined most recently in 1997 in Helsinki. The corridors concerned are the following (Fig. 2):

� Corridor IV: Dresden – Praha – Bratislava/Wien – Budapest – Arad (including the branches off it)

� Corridor V: Venezia – Trieste/Koper – Lju-bljana – Budapest – Cop – L'vov; including the Va branch on the territory of the Slo-vak Republic: Bratislava – Žilina – Košice – Cierna nad Tisou – Cop,

� Corridor VI: Gdansk – Warszawa – Kato-wice – Zwardon/Cadca – Žilina (includ-ing the Bielsko Biała – Ostrava – Breclav branches),

� Priority axis 17 of the TEN-T: – Par-is – Strasbourg – Stuttgart – Wien – Bra-

Fig. 2: Pan-European Corridors in the Slovak Republic (source: [1])

Legend

Corridor IVCorridor VaCorridor VIPriority axis 17

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project phase, and where noise barriers are necessary plans are being made for install-ing them.

4 New building and upgrading measures already completed

Modernising the ŽSR corridors is not a job that can be completed quickly. It calls for a very high quality of project preparation and, above all, very considerable volumes of finance. It has already been necessary to update and modify the modernisation plan several times over on account of shifting priorities in the Slovak Republic’s transport policy and also for financial reasons.

By the end of 2011, a total of 92 km of railway lines in Corridor Va (Bratisla-va – Raca – Nové Mesto nad Váhom) had been modernised on the territory of the Slo-vak Republic as well as 19 km in Corridor VI (Žilina – Krásno nad Kysucou), including all the stations. Work is also progressing on the revitalisation of Žilina-Teplicka marshal-ling yard. Details of some of the projects already completed are given in the following sections [3].

4.1 Bratislava-Raca – Trnava

Modernisation work began in 2006/07 on a double-track section of Corridor Va be-tween Bratislava-Raca and Trnava. Prepara-tory work had been going on since 1994. It had turned out to be fairly complicated, because it was the first large-scale upgrad-ing project on Slovak territory, and not only the project contractors but also the inves-tor (ŽSR) were still short of experience. The issues that were most intensely debated were the new top speed for the line (140 or 160 km/h), various options for laying out the line, the spacing between the tracks in stations and on bridges, the electronic train-protection installations and the man-agement of contracts.

The engineering work was carried out on three part-sections one after the other over a total length of 40.7 km. Five stations were rearranged, three railway bridges and one road bridge were replaced with new struc-tures and two other railway bridges and one road bridge needed modifications. Ten level crossings were eliminated and replaced with bridges over or under the railway.

The biggest single engineering task involved realigning the railway tracks near Šenkvice and increasing their height (Fig. 3), which called for a new embankment with a height of 8 m and a reinforced-concrete bridge with a length of 753 metres (a unique fea-ture in the Slovak railway network).

It is worth emphasising once again the very long time taken by this project from the start of preparations in 1994 to completion

of the engineering work in 2007. It is clear that the investor would today no longer ac-cept a project of this nature stretched over 14 years, but that is what life used to be like in the early days of modernisation.

4.2 Trnava – Nové Mesto nad Váhom

Modernisation of the railway line be-tween Trnava and Nové Mesto nad Váhom (2004 – 2008) was carried out in two sec-tions covering a total length of 53 km. Sev-en new railway bridges were built and nine were modified. In addition, numerous road bridges, passages and station buildings were newly built or modified. Rearranging the station in Leopoldov, an important rail-way junction, turned out to be particularly complicated (Fig. 4 [4]).

4.3 Žilina – Krásno nad Kysucou

Between 2008 and 2011, modernisation work was carried out on an 11-km section of Corridor VI between Žilina and Krásno

nad Kysucou. Here too, several stations needed to be rearranged. Conversion and reconstruction work was carried out on nine bridges and two road projects, and one completely new railway bridge was also re-quired. In addition to that, 12 level cross-ings were modernised on railway sections with speeds greater than 160 km/h.

4.4 Žilina-Teplicka marshalling yard

Plans to build a new marshalling yard in Žilina-Teplicka go back to studies that were performed from 1960 onwards. Actual con-struction work started in 1976, when com-pletion of the project was scheduled for 1992. That was, however never achieved, and the site was abandoned in a half-fin-ished state. A new study of the whole com-plex was drawn up in 1989, but, given the radical changes in social conditions, more or less nothing was done in practice. The land was simply left as it was when the pro-ject was aborted in 1992. The state of the partly finished structures began to deterio-rate more and more over time, and trees

Fig. 3: Realignment of the railway line near Šenkvice

Fig. 4: Leopoldov station after modernisation (source: [4])

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of these, the 17 km between Nové Mesto nad Váhom and Zlatovce, in September 2009 and is scheduled for completion by May 2013. For the first time in the ŽSR network 1:26.5 – 2500 switch-and-crossing (s&c) assemblies were laid for a crossover in Trencianske Bohuslavice station (to the east of Nové Mesto). This is also where a new double-track tunnel has been driven under Turecký vrch (the so-called “Turkish Hill”).

This tunnel, with a length of 1775 m, is the first new one to be driven on the territory of the Slovak Republic for 45 years. In this region, the line has now been laid out for 200 km/h with track radii of 2000 m. The tunnel has been constructed with a summit in the middle and gradients on either side (of +4.9 ‰ and -3.5 ‰) making it easier for any water that arises to run out. The circular tunnel tube has a uniform radius of 6.10 m, and the distance between the track centre-lines is 4.20 m. Niches 20 m apart provide refuge in both side walls of the tunnel along its whole length. Rheda 2000 ballastless track was chosen for the tunnel itself and extending beyond the mouths of the tunnel

interlocking system, the substations, ware-houses and access roads.

5 New projects

In October 2010, the government of the Slovak Republic adopted a “programme for the modernisation and development of the railway infrastructure” for the period 2011 – 2014. For the four years covered by the programme, 57 km of railway lines have been added to the upgrading plans, and a further 30 km have been added for 2015. Figure 7 [5] summarises the progress made on the modernisation of Corridors Va and VI and Priority axis 17 of the TEN-T.

5.1 Railway section between Nové Mesto nad Váhom and Púchov

It is scheduled to complete the section be-tween Nové Mesto nad Váhom and Púchov in Corridor Va by 2014. Work here has been divided into six stages to follow one an-other. Engineering work began on the first

grew on the tracks (Fig. 5 left). From about 2000 onward, the marshalling yard began to be considered as a serious proposition once again, and, in 2004, tenders were invited for what was called the “second stage” of the project. The actual revitalisa-tion of the marshalling yard started on 1 July 2009, and all the work still needing to be done was completed by the end of 2011 (Fig. 5 right).

The new marshalling yard (Fig. 6) was planned for a capacity of 1200 wagons in 24 hours. At the time of writing, the reception yard is comprised of six tracks with a mean usable length of approximately 900 m, three shunting tracks and one spur. The sorting yard is comprised of 18 tracks with a usable length of between 805 and 880 m and one locomotive track. All the sorting tracks are equipped with type-PHB 04 hy-draulic retarders from Strojstav (of Prague), and movements are controlled by an Alis-terCargo interlocking system from Funkwerk IT. The departure yard is comprised of five train tracks with a usable length of 800 to 1000 m. The new structures include the operations building, the tower housing the

Fig. 5: Žilina-Teplicka marshalling yard: view of the sorting yard before revitalisation (left) and afterwards (right)

Fig. 6: Žilina-Teplicka marshalling yard: track layout

Varin stn.

Reception yard

Sorting yard

Construction phases 1 and 2Work currently in progress

Transit yard

KIA Motors siding Váh junction

Departure yard

6 reception tracks

Ops. building (reception)

8 secondary sorting sidings

6 departure tracks

10 primary sorting sidings

7 transit tracks

Central ops. building

BG Mitte

TR 2Interlocking

tower1

Locomotive track

Central energy supplyPolok junction

Aquachema

Žilina

Žilina

Vrutky

RTR 1/2013 17


onto an embankment and a bridge, result-ing in a total length of 2 x 2280 m (Figs. 8 and 9). The unchallenged advantages of this track type are its stable geometric position over a long period of time and its longevity, which the contractors indicate as being at least sixty years. These are in-valuable properties, particularly in tunnels, where any form of maintenance activity is fairly problematical.

During phase 2, several stations were modernised. For phase 3, involving some 12 km of track between Zlatovce and Trencianska Teplá, plans include build-ing a new 360-m-long reinforced concrete railway bridge over the River Váh near the station of Trencín, which is going to be rear-ranged (Fig. 10). The maximum speed over this section is then going to be 140 km/h. Several stations are also going to be mod-ernised on the 20-km-long section between Trencianska Teplá and Beluša (stages 4 and 5) and the 7-km-long section between Beluša and Púchov (stage 6).

The planned engineering activities between Nové Mesto nad Váhom and Púchov in-clude:

� 18 new railway bridges� 22 new road bridges � 29 modified railway bridges � 6 modified road bridges� 26 new pedestrian subways, and � 20 km of noise barriers.

5.2 Other sections in Corridors Va and VI

The modernisation of the railway line be-tween Púchov and Žilina is taking place in two phases with a total length of 38.5 km. Here again, numerous stations are in need of modernisation. Between Púchov and Považská Bystrica it is also necessary to im-prove the alignment of the railway (Fig. 11). The planned engineering work includes two new bridges over the Nosice Canal and the river Váh and two tunnels with a total length of 2.4 km. Work on this section is sched-uled for completion by June 2015.

Modernisation of Corridor VI in the section between Cadca (border), Cadca and Krásno nad Kysucou is currently being prepared. With a length of 17 km, it connects up with the Žilina – Krásno nad Kysucou line, which has already been modernised and where work was completed in 2011. It is planned to install ETCS Level 2 in the section be-tween Žilina and Cadca (border), and the entire Bratislava – Žilina – Cadca (border) line is to be equipped with GSM-R.

Project planning work is being prepared for other sections making up Corridor Va. An intense debate amongst specialists has been raging for a long time especially as regards the route between Žilina and Košice, which passes through very demand-

ing geomorphology and currently does not permit maximum speeds of more than 80-100 km/h. This is an important railway line for the Slovak Republic, but it has now been taken off the European Union’s priority list with the latest revision der TEN-T priority axes by the European Commission.

At the time of writing, there is no consen-sus as to what the project speed should

be. If it were to be increased to 160 km/h, one consequence would be that most of the upgraded line would have to occupy a new site away from the current one. That would make it necessary to construct nu-merous bridges and tunnels, and the costs of modernisation would be very consider-ably increased. Preparatory work has not yet advanced any further than the project documentation on “modernisation of the

Fig. 7: Modernisation projects in Corridors Va and VI (source: [5])

2011 Marshalling yard2014 Combined-transport terminal

Bratislava airport

Fig. 8: The southern (left) and northern (right) mouths of Turecký vrch Tunnel

Fig. 9: Rheda 2000 ballastless track at the northern mouth of the Turecký vrch Tunnel (the original site of the track can be seen on the left.)

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Liptovský Mikuláš – Košice line”. As this stands, 61 % of the 174 km of the line af-ter upgrading would need to be moved away from the original site.

5.3 Bratislava airport link

Another activity still at the stage of project preparation is electrification of the 3.6 km railway link between Marchegg and Devín-ska Nová Ves, which is one of the priorities specifically mentioned for priority axis 17 of the TEN-T. A further plan associated with it is to join this line to the one serving M. R. Štefánik Airport (Bratislava). These meas-ures would also serve the purpose of con-necting the Slovak metropolis more effec-tively with the European high-speed trunk route from Paris via Strasbourg and Vienna to Bratislava and Budapest.

6 Transhipment terminals for combined transport

At the time of writing, the Slovak Republic has still not fully developed its system for intermodal transport. Once the findings of

the study into the Slovak potential in this field had been published, preparations be-gan in 2009 for the construction of four public intermodal terminals, to be located in Žilina, Bratislava, Leopoldov and Košice.

The Žilina terminal is being built next to the Žilina-Teplicka marshalling yard, close to the factories operated by KIA Motors and Hyundai. Construction work started in August 2012 and ought to have been com-pleted by around August 2014. In future, it is going to be a component of the logistic centre serving the whole northern territory of the Slovak Republic.

The Bratislava terminal is to be located in the city’s port (Fig. 12). With an annual tran-shipment capacity of 105 000 containers, it is to encourage the growth of intermodal transport carried by water, rail and road.

Leopoldov terminal has been designed to act as a national hub and is thus the most important Slovak transhipment facility. It is to act as a central distribution point for the other three terminals in the Slovak Republic and also as a collecting point for assem-bling trains bound for Hungary and Poland and possibly for Austria and/or the Czech

Republic too. It is also intended to handle the transhipment of cargoes between rail and road and to provide short-term ware-housing to meet local needs.

Košice terminal has been sited in the Košice-Bociar industrial zone close to US Steel Košice and is intended to become a component in a larger project called “Global Logistic and Industry Park”. This tranship-ment terminal is also going to be connected to the broad-gauge (1520 mm) railway line from Ukraine, which currently ends in Hani-ska, not far from Košice.

7 Broad-gauge (1520 mm) project

One unanswered question still on the Slo-vakian government’s agenda is: what to do about the proposal made by the Russian Railways to extend the broad-gauge line be-yond Cierna nad Tisou and thus create an uninterrupted broad-gauge link from Siberia in Russia to the Austrian capital of Vienna?

The specialists hold diverging views. Some maintain that it is an economically inter-esting project for the Slovak Republic and money well spent, while others see it as a project with an uncertain future, because there is no guarantee as regards the vol-ume of freight that would use it.

At present, six billion tonnes of goods are transported annually from Asia to Europe by sea, and the major European ports, such as Rotterdam and Hamburg, are operating at full capacity. If the railway were to succeed in capturing at least 3 % of this volume, that would make it an economically attractive project. A link to the broad-gauge railway in Ukraine and the Russian Federation would bring the inaccessible regions of the Far East nearer. The unanswered questions in-clude whether a new freight-only railway line would really be able to make decent use of its capacity in this way and, more difficult still, who would be willing to foot the bill for such a mega investment.

Fig. 10: Planned layout of the modernised section in the vicinity of Trencín station, including the planned bridge over the river Vah

Fig. 11: Planned layout of the line between Púchov and Povaská Teplá (yellow: the original layout; red: the proposed layout of the line after modernisation)

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The project’s principal “sponsor” is a Rus-sian-Ukrainian-Slovakian-Austrian consorti-um called “Breitspur-Planungsgesellschaft mbH”, which has its headquarters in Vi-enna and whose members are the railway companies of the countries mentioned. The Slovak member is the ŽSR. The lion’s share of the total investment necessary would be on Slovak territory. The Slovak government estimates that the costs of building such a line would be in excess of seven billion eu-ros. The project does not qualify for a grant from the European Union, since it does not satisfy one of the TEN’s interoperability con-ditions, namely use of the standard Euro-pean railway gauge of 1435 mm.


Given its geographic position, the Slovak Republic occupies an important place in Europe. Its pan-European railway-corridor lines, in particular, must be made to per-form better and to become truly interoper-able. For that reason, they are undergoing modernisation.

Two important assumptions are that the upgrading measures already begun in Cor-ridor Va will be completed as planned and that those projects currently going through preparation will also be launched in prac-tice.

Although the standards defined in the ŽSR’s internal rules [4] represent a quantum leap compared with the current technical state of the infrastructure, they still do not sat-isfy all the requirements laid down in the AGC and AGTC agreements. Moreover, even upon completion of the upgrading work, the final condition of the railway infrastructure in the Slovak Republic is still not quite go-ing to reach the level that a railway infra-structure ought to have in the 21st century, the reason being the concern of the Minis-try of Transport, Construction and Regional Development to keep down the costs of modernisation.

This final comment applies not only to the quality of the railway infrastructure as-sessed in technical terms but also to the ability to offer an attractive (safe, reliable and environmentally friendly) alternative for satisfying the transport needs not only of the people living in the Slovak Republic it-self but also the inhabitants of the unified region of Central Europe.

The authors of this contribution would like to express their thanks for the support re-ceived in the framework of the research-and-development operational programme (OP) associated with the project for a “Centre of Excellence in Transport Engi-neering” (ITMS: 26220120031), which is co-financed by the European Regional De-velopment Fund.

References[1] www.zsr.sk[2] Predpis Ž11 Všeobecné zásady a technické

požiadavky na modernizované trate ŽSR rozchodu 1435 mm. GR ŽSR, 02/2001

[3] Ižvolt, L., Gocálová, Z., Šestáková, J.: Súcasný stav a plány modernizácie železnicnej infraštruktúry na území Slovenskej Republicy. Sborník prednášek

Železnicní dopravní cesta 2012. Décín 29.02.-01.03.2012, ISBN 978-80-260-1282-5

[4] www.doprastav.sk. Doprastav – Modernizácia železnicných tratí 2010. Odbor mediálnej komu-nikácie, 5/2010

[5] Maruniak, D, Šišolák, P.: Stratégia ŽSR. Moderná infraštruktúra. Prezentácia na Sympózium pri príležitosti 10. výrocia vzniku Spolocnosti PSKD, Double Tree by Hilton Hotel Bratislava, 6 Jan. 2011

Fig. 12: Artist’s impression of the planned transhipment terminal in Bratislava

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The partly new and partly upgraded railway line between Nuremberg and Erfurt (Fig. 1) is part of the “German Unity” programme of transport projects. The programme for build-ing new roads and railways, which is known in Germany as “VDE”, was launched follow-ing the country’s reunification in 1990. The section of line described in this report fits into this programme as part-project “VDE 8.1”. Quite apart from that, it forms one of the sections of the long-distance railway corridor between Berlin and Verona, which is part of the Trans-European High-Speed Network (TEN). So it follows that the project must abide by the criteria contained in the Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSIs) for the trans-European high-speed rail system.

The totally new section between Ebensfeld and Erfurt has been designed for a maxi-mum speed of 300 km/h. It is intended to use it for mixed passenger and freight traffic, which is why there is no gradient steeper than 12.5 ‰. All the through tracks in the new section are to be laid as ballast-less track, the catenaries are to be of type Re 330, the train-protection system is to be ETCS Level 2, SRS 3.0 (without lineside signals), and it is planned to equip it with GSM-R for telecommunications.

1 Viaducts on the new line between Ebensfeld and Erfurt

The 107-km-long new line between Ebens-feld and Erfurt traverses an upland region

Viaducts on the new railway line between Ebensfeld and Erfurt

Construction work is currently progressing on the new high-speed railway line between Nuremberg and Erfurt. Its total length is 192 km, of which 107 km are completely new. This new section of line includes several viaducts with a total length of 12 km.

Head of large-scale projectsDB Netz AG, Frankfurt am Main

[email protected]

Dipl.-Ing. Wolfgang Feldwisch

Project manager of the VDE 8 large-scale project

DB ProjektBau GmbH, Leipzig

[email protected]

Dipl.-Ing. Olaf Drescher

Representative of the VDE 8.1 project owner

DB Netz AG, Berlin

[email protected]

Dipl.-Ing. Mike Flügel

Fig. 1: Map of the partly new, partly upgraded Nuremberg–Ebensfeld–Erfurt railway line

(source of all figures: the authors)

Erfurt

Nuremberg

Ebensfeld

N

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bridges for mixed passenger and freight rail-way traffic:

� load model LM 71� load model SW/0 for bridges with con-

tinuous girders, and� load model SW/2 for heavy wagon traf-

fic.

2 Description of the viaducts

The seven viaducts listed above are de-scribed in the following sections in geo-graphic order, starting in the south (Ebens-

� Froschgrundsee Viaduct 798 m� Weissenbrunn am Forst Viaduct 614 m

Each of these viaducts is described one after the other in more detail below. The central documents governing the design of railway bridges in Germany are DB Netz’s in-ternal rule (“Richtlinie”) number 804, which deals with the “planning, construction and maintenance of railway bridges” and the Infrastructure TSI for the EU’s high-speed rail system. In Germany the effects of traf-fic on railway bridges have to be computed on the basis of the DIN technical report (“Fach bericht”) number 101. The following load models are applied for dimensioning

known as Thüringer Wald (Thuringian For-est). It starts near Ebensfeld (km 0) at an altitude of 250 m above sea level, climbs to 600 m (at km 52) before descending again to around 200 m in Erfurt (km 107, Fig. 2). This section of railway includes 22 tunnels with a total length of 41 km and 29 long viaducts with a total length of 12 km. The seven longest viaducts (in descending or-der of length) are:

� Ilm Viaduct 1680 m� Gera Viaduct by Ichtershausen 1121 m� Grümpen Viaduct 1104 m� Füllbach Viaduct 1012 m� Itz Viaduct 868 m

Fig. 2: Longitudinal profile of the new railway line between Ebensfeld and Erfurt. The numbers at the top refer to the order in which the bridges are described in the article

Fig. 3: Weissenbrunn am Forst Viaduct

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feld end of the line) and ending in the north (Erfurt end of the line). The section num-bers correspond to those indicated along the top of the longitudinal profile of the route (Fig. 2).

2.1 Weissenbrunn am Forst Viaduct (Talbrücke Weissenbrunn am Forst, km 15.5)

The 614-m-long Weissenbrunn am Forst Viaduct crosses the valley at a height of roughly 40 m (Fig. 3). Here the railway line has been laid out in a curve, and the tracks have a cant of 135 mm.

This viaduct has been built with a series of single-span girders (box girders with a depth of 4.00 m and an overall (cornice-to-cornice) deck width of 14.30 m) with a frame bridge inserted in the middle. The en-gineering feature as a whole is comprised of:

� eight single-span girders with spans of 1 x 43 m and 7 x 44 m

� one 176-m-long, three-span frame with spans of 50 m + 76 m + 50 m and two V-shaped supports, and

� two single-span girders with spans of 44 m + 43 m.

The piers have shallow foundations, and the V supports rest on piles. The tops of the piers have a cross-section of 3.50 m x 6.00 m.

In that part of the viaduct made of a series of single spans, the longitudinal forces are transmitted a span at a time. The longitu-dinal forces acting on the frame bridge are transmitted through its two V-shaped sup-ports. These have a hollow cross-section, and their dimensions are approximately 5.00 x 2.80 m (at the top). At the foot of the pier, this hollow cross-section trans-forms into a solid one. Concrete hinges have been placed at the feet of the piers, and their function is to absorb the verti-cal and horizontal forces from the frame bridge and also to guarantee the possibility of making replacements should that prove necessary as part of some future repair work. Climbing forms were used to produce the V-shaped supports (Fig. 4). To facilitate inspection, chambers big enough for human access have been provided at the feet of the supports. If ever it is necessary to re-place the frame bridge, these can be used for holding jacks and for assembling skid-ways.

2.2 Füllbach Viaduct (Füllbach-Talbrücke, km 18 – 19)

The 1012-m-long Füllbach Viaduct (Fig. 5) crosses the valley at a height of approxi-mately 40 m. The railway goes over this structure in a transition curve, followed by a straight section of track, followed by another transition curve. Given this layout

Fig. 4: Weissenbrunn am Forst Viaduct (construction of the V-shaped columns)

Fig. 5: Füllbach Viaduct (cantilever construction of the superstructure)

Fig. 6: Itz Viaduct (aerial photograph)

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(left curve – straight – right curve) the two tracks need different cants as they cross the viaduct. The maximum cant is 120 mm, and the distance between the track centre-lines is 4.70 m (in accordance with older Deutsche Bahn rules).

The bridge superstructure is comprised of a series of three continuous girders (box gird-ers in reinforced concrete with a depth of 5.00 m and an overall width of 14.30 m) with lengths of 216 m, 406 m and 390 m:

� first continuous girder over four spans of 1 x 42 m and 3 x 58 m

� second continuous girder over seven spans of 58 m + 3 x 63 m + 3 x 53 m

� third continuous girder over seven spans of 6 x 58 m + 1 x 42 m.

Given that the superstructure parts are divided into three sections, three different types of pier are also needed:

� normal pier with dimensions at the top of 2.70 x 6.00 m

� fixed pier with dimensions at the top of 3.50 x 6.00 m

� dividing pier with dimensions at the top of 4.00 x 6.00 m.

The viaduct foundation was constructed on piles. The foundations, abutments and piers up to a height of 0.50 m above the land or the high-water mark of the river Füll-bach have been made of impermeable con-crete.

2.3 Itz Viaduct (Itz-Talbrücke, km 25)

The 868-m-long Itz Viaduct was constructed at the same time as the parallel bridge over the A73 motorway (Fig. 6).

The superstructure is in the form of a se-ries of single-span girders with spans of 1 x 57 m, 13 x 58 m and 1 x 57 m. The longitudinal forces are transmitted a field at a time. There is no need for rail expan-sion joints. The superstructure is a double-webbed composite truss girder bridge with a steel lattice and a concrete deck as the top chord. The height of this structure is ap-proximately 6.50 m, the spacing between the main girders roughly 6.20 m and the overall width (cornice-to-cornice) 14.30 m. The bridge’s top chord (the running deck) has been constructed as a T-beam in non-prestressed concrete.

The tops of the piers have a cross-section of 3.50 x 8.30 m. All the substructures are supported on piles.

2.4 Froschgrundsee Viaduct (Talbrücke Froschgrundsee, km 34)

At a height of approximately 65 m, the Fro-schgrundsee Viaduct stretches over the

Fig. 7: Froschgrundsee Viaduct (arch with a span of 270 m)

Fig. 8: Froschgrundsee Viaduct (construction of an arch using pylons)

Fig. 9: Grümpen Viaduct (construction of an arch using temporary towers)

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river valley and a reservoir called “Frosch-grundsee” (with varying water levels). An arched bridge with a span of 270 m carries the railway over this reservoir, in which the water is about 160 m wide (Fig. 7). The arch was erected with the help of steel car-rying cables anchored via pylons (Fig. 8). The bridge piers have three different top dimensions:

� normal piers: 2.70 x 6.00 m� piers in the area of longitudinal force

coupling: 3.50 x 6,00 m � spandrel columns: 5.00 x 2.00 m.The piers (with one exception) rest on large

bored piles in load-bearing rock.

The bridge superstructure has been built as a series of reinforced-concrete continu-ous girders (three continuous single-cell box girders with a depth of 3.60 m and an overall (cornice-to-cornice) deck width of 14.30 m. Its spans are 6 x 44 m, 9 x 30 m and 6 x 44 m.

Two sets of rail expansion joints are envis-aged corresponding to the positions of the abutments.

2.5 Grümpen Viaduct (Grümpen-Talbrücke km 37 – 38)

The 1104-m-long viaduct crosses the Grümpen valley at a height of approximate-ly 70 m and features a huge arch with a span of 270 m (Fig. 9). This arch was con-structed as a single-cell box girder with ex-ternal dimensions of 7.40 x 6.50 m at its imposts and 5.90 x 4.50 m at its vertex. It was supported on temporary towers during construction.

Given the layout of the line, the shape cho-sen for the horizontal projection was that of an asymmetric arch. The inside of the arch in this projection has a smaller radius than the curvature of the track. The outside of

the arch lies in a straight line. This some-what unusual asymmetrical arch shape con-tributes to reducing the eccentricity of the arch and thus reduces the torsional stress placed on it by its own weight.

The superstructure is in the form of a con-tinuous reinforced-concrete single-cell box girder with a depth of 3.60 m and spans of between 30 and 44 m. Once the arch, abutments and pillars had been completed, the superstructure was produced using a displaceable formwork carriage advanc-ing from pier to pier. The superstructure elements are supported on longitudinally displaceable point rocker bearings with transverse retention in each bearing axis. The bridge’s longitudinal fixed points are ar-ranged at its abutments and the vertex of the arch.

2.6 Ilm Viaduct (Ilm-Talbrücke, km 68.5 – 70.2)

With a length of 1680 m, the Ilm Viaduct is the longest bridge on the new line (Fig. 10). It crosses the Ilm valley in a north-south di-rection over three arches with heights of up to 50 m or so. The spans of these arches are 125 m (southern arch), 155 m (middle arch) and 175 m (northern arch). They are parabolically curved and have variable box-girder cross-sections. The external dimen-sions of these box girders are, to take the northern arch for instance, 4.50 x 6.80 m at its impost and 3.50 x 5.80 m at its ver-tex. Cantilevered construction was used for these arches.

Several single piers have been built be-tween the arches. They have been given differing cross-sections depending on their function. The normal piers have a cross-section at the top of 2.70 x 5.80 m. The piers supporting the transverse joints in the deck (dividing piers) have one of 4.00 x 5.80 m, and those in the longitudinal force coupling zone 3.50 x 5.80 m. The spandrel

Fig. 11: Gera Viaduct in Ichtershausen (crossing over the A71 motorway)

Fig. 10: Ilm Viaduct

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columns have box-girder cross-sections of 1.75 x 4.80 m.

The superstructure elements are pre-stressed both longitudinally and trans-versely. They have been made as box gird-ers with a depth of 5.00 m. The overall (cornice-to-cornice) width of the bridge is 14.10 m, and the track centrelines are 4.50 m apart. The catenary masts have been attached to the equipment beams along the cantilever shoulders. The side-ways on the bridge have been made wide enough (approximately 1.20 m) for bridge inspection vehicles to be able to drive on them.

The superstructure elements form a series of continuous girders:

� one 336-m six-span continuous girder with spans of 1 x 46 m + 5 x 58 m

� one 415-m ten-span continuous girder with spans of 3 x 58 m + 5 x 25 m (over the southern arch) + 2 x 58 m

� one 459-m twelve-span continuous gird-er with spans of 3 x 58 m + (2 x 23 m + 3 x 21 m + 2 x 23 m over the middle arch) + 1 x 68 m + 1 x 62 m, and

� one 471-m twelve-span continuous gird-er with spans of 2 x 61 m + 7 x 25 m (over the northern arch) + 3 x 58 m.

In order to keep the stresses in the rails within the prescribed limits, four rail expan-sion joints have been envisaged for each track.

Transmission of the longitudinal forces is through the fixed points at the vertexes of the arches. Each of the longitudinal bear-ings for horizontal forces in the vertexes has been arranged in the form of two brack-ets gripping into the lower slab of the box-girder superstructure. The bearings and brackets fastened to the arches by means of tendons have been designed to be capa-ble of replacement.

The superstructure elements were posi-tioned using the incremental launching method.

It is possible to raise the superstructure if the bearings need replacing. For this pur-pose, support surfaces for jacks have been left on the benching of the abutments, piers and spandrel columns. To facilitate the in-spection and maintenance of this engineer-ing feature, its abutments have both been constructed with a chamber, and its piers and spandrel columns have working space accessible through manhole covers. Provi-sion has been made on all the piers, except for the one at axis 240, for a lift to be used (to gain access to the inside of the pier) or a travelling pier device. The one excep-tional pier has been fitted out with landings, guard rails and steel ladders. It is possible to access the abutments, arches and piers from ground level through lockable doors. The foot of each pier is equipped for as-

sembling and/or storing rope-guided work-ing platforms.

The insides of the arches are equipped with a catwalk and a combination of ladders and stairs. At the bottom of each spandrel col-umn there is a platform with suitable tran-sition for a ladder. Manholes to permit ac-cess for inspection and maintenance have been arranged in the axes of the spandrel columns and in all the arch imposts. Vehi-cle access to the inside of the arch is basi-cally intended to be possible. Underneath the arches, there are platforms on which it is possible to set up the bridge inspection device.

All the equipment on the viaduct satisfies the DB AG master plans (i.e. doors, grat-ings, vents, anchor rails, platforms, anti-fall guards, bird netting, railings, noise barriers, catenary masts, drains, supports, transi-tions, cable guards, earth connections, seals, power supplies and lighting).

Rainwater is drained off the viaduct through gullies in the deck slab, which feed a main drain in the superstructure. The water thus collected is routed to downpipes in two of the piers and from there to stilling basins with a valve chamber at the bottom of the piers, from where it is discharged to the re-tention basins draining the new railway line.

2.7 Gera Viaduct in Ichtershausen (Gera-Talbrücke Ichtershausen, km 95)

The new railway line uses this viaduct to cross the valley of the river Gera to the southwest of the settlement of Molsdorf. At its northern end it goes over the planned A71 motorway, the access ramps to the nearby crossing of the A71 and A4 mo-torways and the local K20 road between Ichtershausen and Molsdorf (Fig. 11). The superstructure of this 1121-m-long viaduct is comprised of 24 single-span girders with spans of 57 m + 54 m + 19 x 44 m + 3 x 85 m. The reinforced-concrete box girders have a depth of 4.50 m.

3 Prospects

At the time of writing, all the tunnels and viaducts on the new railway line have been completed, and work is currently advancing on fitting out the line with ballastless track, catenaries, electrical equipment and LST/ETCS installations. Test runs and a trial op-eration are planned for 2016, and the new line is scheduled to enter service at the end of 2017.

Our Platform Screen Doors.

www.pintschbamag.de

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by the carbon dioxide contained in the air diffuses into the hardened cement. As that happens, the CO2 reacts with the Ca(OH)2 in the hardened cement to form CaCO3 (lime). This can have the effect of bringing the pH value of the pore solution down below 9, which cancels out the corrosion-protection effect of the concrete.

It is possible for chloride ions to penetrate the concrete if it is exposed to substances with high chloride concentrations (such as through the application of thawing salts or exposure in sea water). There is also often a risk of railway bridges suffering chloride ingress on account of road traffic running over them, under them or parallel to them. In the case of bridge components exposed to nearby road traffic (such as abutments and columns), it has to be assumed that there is a severe risk of chloride loading caused by splash water, but it is also pos-sible for spray to carry chlorides over longer distances before they attack reinforced-concrete parts.

The chlorides concentrate on the surface of the concrete and make their way to the inner parts of the component through dif-

The network operated by Deutsche Bahn includes more than 31500 railway bridges. These can be divided into four roughly equal categories:

� one quarter steel bridges, � one quarter masonry arch bridges,� one quarter concrete bridges of all types,

and� one quarter steel/concrete composite

bridges and concreted rolled-girder bridg-es.

That adds up to a total of roughly 44 % of all its railway bridges made of reinforced concrete, prestressed concrete or rolled girders in combination with concrete. In the time up until 2006, some 800 of these bridges were placed in damage category 4 as defined by Deutsche Bahn's internal rule (RIL) 804.8001, which means they urgently need repairs or even partial renewal.

The bulk of the damage caused to bridge structures is due to chlorides penetrating the structural concrete or carbonation of the concrete (Fig. 1). Both phenomena lead to corrosion of the steel (reinforcement steel, prestressing steel or rolled girders) and thus to the need for repair work.

1 Corrosion protection and damage mechanisms

1.1 Role of concrete in protecting steel reinforcements

A chloride-free and uncarbonated concrete with a pore solution that has a high pH value of 13 provides dependable protection

against corrosion for the reinforcement and prestressing steel elements embedded in it. This high pH value causes the formation of a passive film just a few atoms thick on the surface of the steel, and this protects the steel below it from being dissolved any further. The result is that the untreated steel behaves like a stainless one. It is thanks to this corrosion protection provided by the concrete that structures incorporat-ing reinforcement and prestressing steel are economic, which, in the final analysis, accounts for their success, since there is no need to add a further expensive form of corrosion protection to the reinforcement. Corrosion protection is also effective in the same way for rolled steel girders covered in concrete.

1.2 Limits to the longevity of steel in concrete

The passivity of the reinforcement steel can be lost if the concrete surrounding it loses its alkalinity (through carbonation) or if a critical chloride content is exceeded on the surface of the steel. The term “carbonation of concrete” is applied to a process where-

Repairing concrete bridges Given the age structure of concrete bridges on the railway network, the performance of repair work is becoming an increasingly important activity. Generally speaking, the damage mechanisms are known. If repair work is carried out in good time, particularly on parts affected by chlorides, the cost of doing it can be kept down.

Faculty of Civil EngineeringHochschule München Munich University of Applied Sciences

[email protected]

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christoph Dauberschmidt

Fig. 1: Nature of the damage done to concrete railway bridges on the network managed by DB Netz (all diagrams courtesy of the author)

Design and/or execution shortcomings

Fatigue

Damage by thawing salt

Carbonation-induced corrosion

Chloride-induced corrosion

66 %

3 %

3 %

5 %

5 %

18 %

Inadequate grouting of tendons

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Repairing concrete bridges

The periodicity of these inspections ranges from annually (monitoring), to once every three years (examinations) and once every six years (expert appraisals). It is particu-larly in the case of expert appraisals car-ried out at close quarters that the struc-tures also have to be examined for signs of limited durability due to carbonation or chloridation.

The symptoms might take the form of cracks, flaking, discolouration, water stains, efflorescence, minimum concrete cover and greater depth of carbonation. Moreover, the surface ought to be tapped to locate cavi-ties. If there is any doubt, more extensive examinations ought to be carried out next in the context of a damage analysis of the particular engineering feature. As far as possible, non-destructive test methods are to be used for this purpose (Fig. 4, [2]). The results of these further-reaching examina-tions may then be used as inputs for an estimate of durability.

The following list contains the key test methods used for assessing the degree of damage to chloride-contaminated and car-

that if the path of cracks crosses the re-inforcement, especially separating cracks, chloride-induced corrosion may begin straightway without going through the start-ing phase illustrated in Fig. 2, which com-monly leads to significantly faster corro-sion.

3 Inspection and diagnosis of structures

The engineering features on the railway network operated by DB Netz are inspect-ed regularly. The details are laid down in a set of internal rules (RIL 804.8001), which make the following distinctions:

� monitoring (looking for externally visible damage and defects),

� examination (observation of defects and damage, determination of changes),

� expert appraisal (check of all inaccessi-ble parts of the structure), and

� special inspections (following damage done by collisions, flooding, storms and derailments).

fusion or capillary-suction processes. If the chloride ions get as far as the surface of the steel they will interact with the passive film on it. If the free chloride ions on the steel exceed a critical concentration, this passive film will fail, and corrosion will be able to start. This phase of chloride pen-etration before the steel is depassivated is known as the starting phase. Once cor-rosion sets in that is the beginning of the damage phase as such.

The chronology of accumulated damage to reinforced concrete structures exposed to chlorides or in carbonated concrete is illus-trated in Fig. 2. In order to assess durabil-ity, a distinction must be made between a starting phase, in which the part has not yet suffered any damage, and a damage phase after corrosion has been initiated [1].

2 Process of steel corroding in concrete

When corrosion (such as pitting corrosion) occurs in steel inside concrete, positively charged ferrous irons (Fe2+) go into solu-tion, with concrete acting as the electrolyte. The surplus electrons (e–) are taken up at the boundary between the steel and the electrolyte by water and oxygen (which is normally dissolved in a sufficient quantity in the water), thereby forming negatively charged hydroxide ions (OH–). In this way, a charge balance is maintained in both the iron and the electrolyte. The dissolution of iron (formation of Fe2+) is referred to as an anodic half-reaction and the formation of hydroxide ions (OH–) as a cathodic half-reaction (Fig. 3). View in simplified terms, the corrosion process inside a corrosion element resembles the processes inside a battery, with an electrical and an electrolytic part to a circuit.

Now, the chlorine-induced pitting corrosion of steel in concrete is particularly danger-ous. In normal circumstances (for instance in the presence of water in the concrete) it leads to fast corrosion rates, since, even if there is only a small corrosion scar, a large cathode area will “drive” the corrosion pro-cess. The loss of steel associated with these high corrosion rates may lead to a significant reduction in the total cross-sec-tion of the reinforcement material within on-ly a short period of time (Fig. 3, right). What can make chlorine-induced pitting corrosion even more dangerous is that there need not be any recognisable sign of it on the outside. It can thus happen, for example, that large amounts of the steel cross-sec-tion will already have been lost inside the concrete without any signs of damage being visible on the surface of the concrete. This makes it more difficult to pinpoint areas of active corrosion, because, from the outside, such areas still appear to be intact.

One further point that ought to be made is

Fig. 2: Chronology of the damage done to reinforced-concrete bridges

Start of corrosion

Service life

Time t

1

2

3

4

Damage phaseStarting phase

Damage accumulation

Fig. 3: Corrosion of reinforcement steel. Left: anodic part-reaction, right: cathodic part-reaction

Air

Potential difference

Steel reinforcement

Concrete / Electrolyte

Electrolyte =

Pore solution

Anode half-reaction

Dissolution of iron

Cathode half-reaction

Oxygen reduction

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bonated parts. Each one is then presented briefly below:

� measurement of the potential field, � measurement of the concrete cover, � generation of chloride profiles, � determination of the depth of carbona-

tion, and � exploratory openings.

Before any of these tests are performed, however, there should always first be a vis-ual inspection by an inspector of works of engineering. Such a specialist with appro-priate experience will be able to note and evaluate the particularities of a given struc-ture, such as design, position relative to roads, moisture loads in the concrete, and

so on. It is only on the basis of such an en-gineering inspection that it is then possible to make meaningful plans for performing an object-related analysis as a more thorough diagnosis of the structure’s state of repair.

3.1 Determination of depth of carbonation

The usual way of determining the depth of carbonation is by random sampling of a freshly produced fracture or separation sur-face which is whetted with distilled water and an indicator fluid (usually phenolphtha-lein). By turning purple, phenolphthalein shows up the basic, not carbonated parts of the concrete. Given that carbonation

brings down the concrete’s pH value from a high number (around 12) indicating alkalin-ity, it is possible, for example, by marking the area in which the pH value has flipped to 9 to obtain an indication of the depth of the carbonation front.

3.2 Measurement of the potential field

The electro-chemical measurement of the potential field is a procedure for assessing the corrosion behaviour of the reinforce-ment in reinforced-steel parts. The funda-mentals of the technique and guidance on performing it in practice are to be found in the 2008 revision of leaflet B3 published by the German Society for Non-Destructive Testing (DGZfP) [3]. It is a method that can be used to pinpoint zones with a high prob-ability of corrosion by measuring the differ-ence in electro-chemical potential (Fig. 5).

3.3 Determination of chloride profiles

One of the principal approaches to assess-ing parts affected by chlorides is to es-tablish the chloride load, which is usually done by producing and evaluating chloride profiles. This involves drilling out powdered samples for different defined depths and then analysing them chemically by means of acid leaching along the lines indicated in the DAfStb’s booklet 401. The result is an indication of the total chloride content of the concrete expressed as a percentage of its mass. By making a meaningful estimate of the density of the concrete and its cement content, this figure must then be converted into a figure for chloride content relative to the cement content (mass percentage/cement content). Taking a reinforced-steel structure without increased porosity and with the usual concrete cover, a simplified assumption is that there is a risk of cor-rosion of the reinforcement for a chloride concentration of 0.5 % by mass and more relative to the cement content [4].

3.4 Exploratory openings

In order to be able to estimate the degree of damage done where reinforcement cor-rosion has already set in, exploratory open-ings need to be made in places that will deliver meaningful information. Such sam-pling locations can be used for determining not only the state of the reinforcement but also its loss of cross-section due to cor-rosion. These same locations can also be used for calibrating measurements of con-crete cover and for determining the depth of carbonation.

3.5 Measurements of concrete cover

It is not possible to make full use of car-bonation depths and/or measurements of

Fig. 4: Non-destructive testing NDT (cf. [2])

Inspection in accordance with national rules

Annual inspection (line workers, drivers)

Routine inspection after three years

General inspection, first time after completion

Appraisal of

condition

Information

before inspections

Use of databases

Integrated in the

bridge manage-

ment system

Phase 1:

Estimate of load-

bearing capacity

Visual inspection,

NDT with simple

hand-held devices

Phase 4:

Decision / repair, reinforcement, replacement

Phase 2:

Rough computa-

tion of load-bearing

capacity

NDT with simple

hand-held devices

Phase 3:

Precise computa-

tion of load-bearing

capacity

Use of scanners,

data merger and

evaluation

Terminology

(UIC)

Damage database

NDT-toolboxdatabase

Re-dimensioning in phases

Doubts

Higher axle loads

Higher train frequencies

Damage

Fig. 5: Test of electro-chemical potential (cf. [3])

Reference electrode

Steel rein-forcement

Concrete

Pote

ntia

l [m

V]

High- impedance voltmeter

Electrical connection Point of corrosion

- 700 mV

Concrete cover

RTR 1/2013 29


content to values that ensure that the electrolytic part of the process can to prevented in order to ensure that the rate of any continuing corrosion is slow enough for no harm to be done;

� The “C” process: Coating the surfaces of the steel to prevent the occurrence of the anodic (and cathodic) half-reaction in those locations in which the steel sur-faces have been repaired; and

� The so-called “K” process: Cathode cor-rosion protection to make sure that the reinforcement can have only a cathodic effect in a closed control loop.

5 Frequently applied repair principles

5.1 Repairs where carbonation has occurred

In considering repairing concrete damaged

concrete, it is possible to lower the rate of corrosion to virtually negligible values, since all transport processes in the concrete will be impeded. In Germany, the inspectorate responsible for supervising repair work on concrete parts requires the application of the Guideline on the Protection and Repair of Concrete Bridge Parts issued by the Ger-man Committee for Reinforced Concrete (Deutscher Ausschuss für Stahlbeton, DAf-Stb) [5], in instances in which stability is at risk, which is generally the case particularly with corrosion.

From the above range of technical possibili-ties for preventing the corrosion process, four fundamental practical principles of cor-rosion protection are listed in [5]:

� The “R” process: Re-instating the active corrosion protection by repassivating the reinforcement and/or the durably passi-vating effect of the concrete;

� The “W” process: Lowering the water

potential fields and chloride profiles to es-tablish the durability of the structure unless the concrete cover over the reinforcement is also known. The usual way of determin-ing this is through non-destructive meas-urements using eddy currents. This method exploits the electro-magnetic interaction between an induction coil and the eddy cur-rent induced in the reinforcement bar. What is measured is the complex resistance to alternating current (impedance) in the in-duction coil. A regression analysis can then be applied to determine the concrete cover and/or the diameter of the reinforcement rod. Depending on which measuring device is used, it is possible to make linear and/or area measurements (Fig. 6).

4 Avoiding corrosion

The purpose of repairing parts affected by chlorides or carbonates is to re-establish the corrosion protection of the reinforce-ment and to ensure future longevity. That being so, the principles underlying the re-pair work are based decisively on prevent-ing the corrosion processes illustrated in Fig. 3. Considering just a technical point of view, the principles that may be available are those described below (and positioned schematically in Fig. 7).

4.1 Avoiding the anodic half-reaction

This is an aim that it is possible to reach in various ways. The first of these is to re-establish the alkali environment around the reinforcement and to remove the chlorides present that are causing corrosion or to re-alkalise the concrete. A second possi-bility involves forcing the reinforcement in a closed control loop to act as a cathode (cathodic corrosion protection, CCP). A third possibility, finally, comprises separating the electrolyte from the steel by means of an effective coating and thus preventing the anodic half-reaction from occurring.

4.2 Avoiding the cathodic half-reaction

In a sufficiently moist concrete, it is only possible to prevent the cathodic part-reaction with an uncoated reinforcement if no oxygen is able to reach its surface. Considering the practical conditions affect-ing engineering structures, it is only in rare and exceptional cases that it is possible to prevent the cathodic half-reaction from happening. For that reason, the applicable sets of rules referred to above do not envis-age this possibility as a practicable repair principle.

4.3 Preventing the electrolytic part-process

By bringing down the water content in the

Fig. 6: Measurement of the concrete cover using the eddy-current method

Display device

Probe

Steel reinforcement

Concrete

Magnetic induction

Calibration for known bar diameter

Fig. 7: Principle of corrosion protection in accordance with [5]; in the case of those processes whose initial is shown in a circle with a green background it is not necessary to remove the concrete affected by chlorides

Conventional

CCP

Take care when handling chlorides!

Repassivation

Prevent

anodic

half-reaction

Alkali spray-on

mortar on

large area

Alkali mortar

for local

repairs

Electro-

chemical

methods

Coating steel surfaces in all areas

where there is no active protection

Cathodic corrosion protection

Reduction of water content

Prevent

cathodic

half-reaction

Prevent

electrolytic

part-process

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through carbonation, the first question to be clarified is the extent to which the rein-forcement has already been damaged. Any steel cross-sections that have been eroded through corrosion ought also to be built up again, and cavities and spalling losses ought to be repaired locally by reprofiling. The next matter to be clarified is whether putting a coating on the carbonated con-crete surface might durably reduce the wa-ter content of the concrete. That will not be the case if another route is available for wa-ter to get through the coating on the parts, for instance parts in contact with the soil (such as angular retaining walls and abut-ments). If the concrete can be relied on to dry out, it is sufficient to apply the “W” prin-ciple and to put a coating on the concrete in accordance with [5], but this coating must be of a nature to permit the concrete to dry out without allowing water (for instance from precipitation) to get in.

If a coating is not going to produce the de-sired result, what is often done in practice

is to resort to the “R1-K” principle and to apply an alkali shotcrete or cement mortar over a large surface area of the carbonated concrete. Diffusion of OH–-ions into the con-crete re-alkalises the concrete (Fig. 8). A precondition for such a measure, however, is the existence of a sufficient clearance gauge.

5.2 Repair of damage due to chlorides

Whereas it is generally possible for concrete that has suffered carbonation to remain in the repaired structure, that is not usually feasible for concrete that has suffered sig-nificant degradation due to chlorides. The concrete that has deteriorated under the in-fluence of chlorides must be removed and replaced with new reprofiling concrete. This “R” principle of corrosion protection is the repair variant conventionally used in most cases where there is a significant chloride load. In order to ensure that the structure will prove durable once repaired, the usual

practice is to apply a coating to the con-crete surface as well in order to prevent chlorides from penetrating it again.

If it is the “C” principle of repair that is applied (i.e. coating the reinforcement), it must be borne in mind that this interven-tion may entail considerable technical risks if carried out on the construction site, since the concrete cover has to be removed and subsequently reprofiled. Use of this princi-ple is not recommended.

Use of the “W” repair principle (i.e. lowering the water content) can only be recommend-ed in the presence of chlorides in very par-ticular limiting conditions. This procedure too is associated with considerable techni-cal risks on account of the hygroscopic be-haviour of the salts in combination with the very slow drying-out behaviour of the con-crete and thus cannot be rated as a general state-of-the-art practice.

Having got this far, what is left of [5] are the two electro-chemical repair principles that do not require the concrete affected by chlorides to be removed: the “Rx” prin-ciple, which applies an electro-chemical process to extract the chlorides from the concrete, and the “K” principle (i.e. ca-thodic corrosion protection or CCP) of the reinforcement. Both of these methods are innovative, and their use has greatly inten-sified in recent years. Of the two, there are numerous examples of CCP in particular be-ing applied in practice, including for railway bridges.

The principle of CCP is to polarise the rein-forcement cathodically through electrodes (i.e. anodes) installed either over large ar-eas or at particular locations in order to prevent the anodic dissolution of iron or to lower it to a harmless amount. For this pur-pose, a durable, corrosion-resistant anode (such as activated titanium) is electrolyti-cally coupled to the concrete with the aid of a cement-bound mortar and connected to the positive pole of a DC source. The rein-forcement is then connected to the nega-tive pole of the voltage source (Fig. 9). The application of a low DC voltage serves to generate a protective current, which acts in the opposite direction to the corrosion current and thus largely prevents steel cor-rosion.

Chloride extraction (Fig. 10) is a technique that exploits the fact that ions migrate when an electric field is applied. This ion migra-tion is put to intentional use in the electro-chemical removal of chlorides to take the chloride ions out of the concrete, leaving the concrete as such in the structure. The negatively charged chloride ions (Cl-) mi-grate to the positive pole of the temporary anode. Whereas the “K” (or CCP) repair principle is recognised as state of the art by being standardised in DIN EN ISO 12696: 2012-05, that is not the case for the “Rx” (or chloride extraction) repair principle.

Fig. 9: Cathodic corrosion protection (CCP) for reinforced-steel structures

Electrolytic coupling to reinforcement

Electrolytic coupling to anode

Concrete

Steel reinforcement

Reference electrode

Anode

Rectifier

Fig. 8: Re-alkalisation of a carbonated layer of concrete under an alkali layer of mortar

Alkali mortar

Carbonated

concrete

Non-carbonated concrete

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5.3 Repair strategies

In dealing with the question as to which repair principle makes sense when, it is essential to consider what service life the concrete structure will have after being re-paired. The range of options available here stretches from possibilities for determining the service life of the concrete structure in a single comprehensive work step for plan-ning purposes through to simpler options, with which repeated smaller repair meas-ures may be necessary, such as locally lim-ited chloride repairs.

In this context, it makes sense to consider each individual protective and repair meas-ure as part of a management system for the engineering feature. The various op-tions are then to be rated in terms of their effectiveness in the residual service life of the structure (i.e. a life-cycle cost analysis or LCCA) [6].

6 Other types of damage and their remedies

6.1 Ungrouted tendons

Corrosion protection of tendons is usually assured by injecting a grouting mortar con-taining cement into the tendon duct under pressure. If faults arise during pressure in-jection, it is possible that not all parts of the duct will have been grouted. The effects are often corrosion of the duct and the ten-dons with a significant reduction in durabil-ity. It may perhaps be possible, if certain preconditions are met, to perform a non-de-structive ultrasonic test to check whether or not tendon ducts in existing structures have been completely grouted at adequate pressure. Endoscopic examinations are an available method at the anchor points. It most cases, ungrouted tendons can be “post-grouted” using a vacuum technique. At the same time, it is possible to estab-lish the size of the space not filled with the grouting material.

6.2 Fatigue

Given the age of the existing inventory of bridges in Germany, fatigue and the estima-tion of residual service lives of older pre-stressed and reinforced concrete bridges is gaining more and more in importance. The fatiguing of the prestressing or reinforce-ment steel is caused by cyclical changes in stresses due to the traffic load, which leads to big fluctuations particularly in the case of short railway bridges with a low mass of their own but carrying heavy traffic loads. Another weakness in prestressed concrete bridges is their joints, since greater pre-stressing losses occur here due to creep and shrinkage on account of the change in cross-section and the sudden change in stiffness.

In order to be able to produce an estimate of the residual service life, it is necessary to make long-term measurements of the dy-namic load occurring in reality. The repair of fatigue-sensitive components generally takes the form of local reinforcement meas-ures.


Railway bridges made of reinforced steel, prestressed steel or rolled steel gird-ers covered in concrete are not immune to the processes of aging. It is precisely through the penetration of chlorides into the structural steel and the carbonation of the concrete that the corrosion protection of the reinforcement is lost. The extent of this damage can be estimated by applying various non-destructive test methods, and their results can then be used for plan-ning customised repairs. Considering the various sets of rules in their currently valid versions, several repair principles are avail-able and it is, in particular, the innovative procedures, such as cathodic corrosion pro-

tection, that have been increasingly gaining in importance in recent years. Experience shows that making repairs early, particular-ly of parts affected by chlorides, helps keep the repair costs down.

References[1] Tuutti, K.: Corrosion of Steel in Concrete. Stock-

holm: Swedish Cement and Concrete Research In-stitute. – In: CBI Research (1982), no. Fo 4:82

[2] Helmerich, R.; Niederleithinger, E.; Bien, J.; Cruz, P.; Casas, J.R.; Horrigmore, G.; Holm, G.; Kammel, C. et al: SB-ICA: Guideline for Inspection and Condition Assessment. www.sustainablebridges.net, 2007

[3] DGZfP: Merkblatt für elektrochemische Potential-messungen zur Ermittlung von Bewehrungsstahl-korrosion in Stahlbetonbauwerken (B3), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Zerstörungsfreie Prüfung e.V., Berlin (2008)

[4] Breit, W.; Dauberschmidt, C.; Gehlen, C.; Sodeikat, C.; Taffe, A.; Wiens, U.: Zum Ansatz eines kritischen Chloridgehaltes bei Stahlbetonbauwerken. In: Be-ton- und Stahlbetonbau 05/2011

[5] DAfStb: Guideline for the Protection and Repair of Concrete Bridge Parts (Richtlinie für Schutz und Instandsetzung von Stahlbetonbauteilen, Rili-SIB). Beuth-Verlag, Berlin, 2001

[6] DIN EN 1504-9:2008-11: Products and systems for the protection and repair of concrete structures – Definitions, requirements, quality control and evalua-tion of conformity – Part 9: General principles for the use of products and systems; German version of EN 1504-9:2008

Fig. 10: Electro-chemical removal of chlorides from reinforced-concrete structures

Principle of the electro-chemical removal of chlorides

2

Electrolyte store and chloride absorber

Concrete

Steel reinforcement

External electrode

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concrete slabs had been successfully com-pleted on the company’s own premises, approval was granted in April 2007 by the German Federal Railway Authority (Eisen-bahn-Bundesamt, EBA) for the operational testing of switches and crossings in the ballastless track system, which the manu-facturer itself designates as “FFB TS – Fer-tigteilweiche Bögl”.

2 Manufacture of prefabricated parts and slab assembly

Prefabrication offers crucial advantages compared with those solutions that are based on in-situ cast concrete, because it is possible to eliminate the influence of the temperature-determined dilatation of the rails during the measurement and adjust-ment process as well as during concreting. There is also a timing advantage, since the production of the load-bearing structure to go under the switches and crossings can be done completed independently of the pro-duction and delivery of the s&c rails.

As described above, the particularities of the structure of the switches and cross-ings had to be fed into the system makeup

As had already been done when developing the concrete slabs for holding plain track, designing the corresponding slabs to hold the components of switches and crossings also followed the fundamental ideas of producing high-quality, high-precision pre-fabricated parts in the factory and subse-quently laying them at the construction site without needing to use support rails. As is an established feature of the Bögl system of slabs for ballastless track, the precision machining of the rail supports is done un-der computer control.

1 From idea to approval

From the outset, there were several impedi-ments to this further development, and they needed to be eliminated before any fur-ther progress became possible. Given the geometric characteristics of switching and crossing (s&c) elements, they do not permit uniform dimensions for the prefabricated slabs – an important difference compared with the slabs for plain track. Consideration must also be given to transport dimensions and masses, which result in slabs with indi-vidually adjusted sizes and longer and nar-rower and the toe end of the s&c assembly, becoming increasingly shorter and wider towards its heel end.

A further complication is the need to make provision for recesses with a depth of up to 25 cm under the switch blades and moving crossings to provide space for the switch-

ing and safety mechanisms. These require-ments are met by leaving joints that are wide enough between the individual s&c slabs. So the individual prefabricated parts are not fastened to one another directly, as is the otherwise usual practice with Bögl slabs. It was, nonetheless, felt desirable to guarantee the uninterrupted concrete rib-bon that is characteristic of the Bögl sys-tem of slab track. This has been achieved by moving the height at which the load is distributed down by one layer under switch-es and crossings to a level corresponding to the hydraulically bound sub-layer under plain track.

Another hurdle occurred in the form of the rail fastenings, which differed from those used with the normal concrete slabs. Not only do the ribbed-plate fastenings used in combination with switches (“elastic ribbed baseplate supports” from BWG) differ in de-sign from the Vossloh System 300-1 used for plain track, but special solutions are also required for the design and laying of the slabs, given that the ribbed plates are of different sizes and inserted in varying po-sitions along the length of an s&c.

Once the planning, dimensioning and inser-tion of a prototype of the newly developed

Max Bögl concrete slabs for switches and crossings

Since 2006, “FF System Bögl” concrete slabs have been in use in Germany on the through tracks forming the new high-speed line between Nuremberg and Ingolstadt. It was a logical next step to develop a prefabricated solution for switches and crossings too.

Railway-project managementMax Bögl GroupNeumarkt in der Oberpfalz, Germany

[email protected]

Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Hubert Greubel

Fig. 1: Precise “internal geometry” for the subsequent insertion of the rail fastening on the construction site thanks to production of holes using a CNC drill

(source of all figures: Max Bögl Group)

RTR 1/2013 33


3 A first in China

Since the Chinese began expanding their railway network in 2005, more than 5000 km of high-speed lines have already entered service. The same length again is

of the ballastless track. For this purpose, the parts of the slab track holding switches and crossings are subdivided into individu-al slab segments, and each one of these needs to be individually adapted to fit the s&c geometry, to include the recesses needed for the switching and safety mecha-nisms and also to satisfy constraints con-cerning transport and assembly. Each slab section is thus unique and customised for one specific s&c. However, the manufactur-ing process has been optimised to such an extent that all the prefabricated parts can be produced using just two different types of formwork. Moreover, profiling the prefab-ricated slabs has also been standardised, which means that flat, precisely adjustable support surfaces for holding the rail fasten-ings alternate at fixed intervals with trans-versely sloping drainage depressions.

The rail fastening’s ribbed plates are con-nected to the prefabricated slab by means of two screws, so-called through fasten-ings. The holes for these fastenings are produced by a CNC drill in the prefabrica-tion works, which already results in a very precise “internal geometry” for the subse-quent assembly of the rail fastening at its definitive field location (Fig. 1). The effect of this is that as large a proportion as pos-sible of the task of achieving high precision in the s&c geometry is shifted from the con-struction site to the prefabrication plant.

In parallel with the production of the slabs, work can already also commence on the construction site in arranging the reinforce-ment bars for the concrete base layer as well as placing the support blocks on a sub-base. The concrete slabs for carrying the switches and crossings with the through fastenings already added to them in the factory are transported to the construction site and unloaded onto special alignment devices. These can be adjusted in three di-mensions and make it possible to position the slabs with great accuracy without need-ing to use support or switch rails (Figs 2 and 3). The concept for measuring the posi-tion of the slabs is one that was developed especially for this purpose.

Once all this has been done, the next step is to produce the continuously reinforced concrete base layer by pouring concrete un-der the s&c slabs, which do not move out of their carefully aligned positions. Before this is done, formwork is placed on the outside of the support blocks. The joints in the con-crete base layer are arranged to correspond to those between the slabs, and the con-crete is poured into these individual sec-tions one at a time. Self-compacting con-crete is cast to fill in the edges, ensuring that the s&c slab is supported on the base layer over its whole area. In order to obtain an uninterrupted ribbon of concrete through the transition between the plain track and the s&c assembly, the concrete base layer is extended downwards into the hydrauli-cally bound sub-layer both before the switch

Fig. 2: Laying an s&c slab

Fig. 3: The s&c slabs with the through fastening already inserted in the prefabrication works are placed on special alignment devices on the construction site

Fig. 4: Laying parts for a switch-and crossing assembly

and after the crossing (or vice versa) and attached to the track slabs above it, there using anchors. Finally, the rails making up the switch and crossing and their switching mechanisms are installed directly on the s&c slab (Figs 4 and 5).

RTR 1/201334


under construction at the time of writing. The Max Bögl Group has had its part to play in this spectacular development from the very beginning. As early as 2005, contracts were concluded for the construction of a 10 km test line and the transfer of technol-ogy for the first high-speed line between Beijing and Tianjin.

The dedicated high-speed line for passen-ger services was completed in only two and a half years and was ready to enter service with a maximum speed of 350 km/h on 1 August 2008 in time for the Beijing Olympic Games. It incorporated not only the track-slab system with a newly developed type of track for bridges but also the first-ever crossover using s&c slabs forming part of the Bögl system of ballastless track. The switches and crossings used for this cross-over are of the type VRC 60-1100-1:18 with an overall length of approximately 69 m without the end piece and a turnout speed of 80 km/h.

How thoroughly impressed the responsible officials at the Chinese Ministry of Railways must have been with the prefabrication technique was eloquently borne out when

an important decision had to be taken concerning the 1032-km-long high-speed line between Wuhan, a provincial capital in Central China on the Yangtze River, and Guangzhou, the main economic centre in the south of China. At a time when produc-tion of the ballastless track was already entering its final phase, it was decided to change roughly 100 of the total of approxi-mately 170 s&cs from the in-situ cast tech-nology originally planned to the new prefab-rication method. With engineering support from Germany, two field factories were set up in next to no time for the production of the s&c slabs and produced more than 2400 such slabs within only a few months. In addition to the VRC 60-1100-1:18, as already installed on the Beijing-Tianjin line, the crossovers on the new line use VRC 60-1700/7300-1:50 s&cs, which are also sup-plied in prefabricated parts. These have a length of more than 220 m and a turnout speed of up to 200 km/h. Overall responsi-bility for planning the prefabricated switch-es and crossings (from designing the slab segments through to producing formwork and reinforcement plans for each individual prefabricated part) was entrusted to the en-gineering department at Max Bögl.

The situation at the time of writing is that considerably more than 300 switches and crossings of different geometries have en-tered service on Bögl slabs in the Chinese high-speed network, including the important line between Beijing and Shanghai (Figs. 6 and 7).

4 German experience

The award of the contract for laying the bal-lastless track as part of DB Netz’s “German Unity” VDE 8.1 transport-infrastructure pro-ject for the section of railway line between Ilmenau and Erfurt (in the northern section of the part-new/part-upgraded line between Nuremberg and Erfurt) offered the opportu-nity of laying “Bögl switches and crossings” using the prefabrication methods in Germa-ny too. Starting in the south, with the newly constructed bridge over the Ilm Valley, near the town of Ilmenau, the new section has a length of 32 km to its northern end just south of Erfurt.

The high-speed line, which has been laid out for 300 km/h, traverses the upland ter-rain of the northern Thüringer Wald, with 20 % of its total length running on bridges and through tunnels. Sidings have been planned at two locations, near Ilmenau-Wolfsberg and Eischleben.

These sidings require a total of eight switch-es and crossings for accessing and leaving the stopping tracks with a geometry of 60-1200-1:18,5 fb (permitting a turnout speed of 100 km/h) plus twelve switches and crossings for the crossovers with a geom-etry of 60-2500-1:26.5 fb (130 km/h). The technical parts of the switches and cross-ings (rails, rail fastenings, switching rods, locks etc.) are being supplied by Voest- alpine BWG.

Max Bögl’s engineering design office in Neumarkt has produced all the planning documents needed for these switches and

Fig. 7: The sophisticated installation concept shortens the time required and makes the construction process flexible

Fig. 6: An s&c slab with its rail supports on a construction site in China

Fig. 5: Rail supports, s&c rails and switching mechanisms are placed directly on the “FF-System Bögl” s&c slab

RTR 1/2013 35


of the Ilmenau-Erfurt project, the Max Bögl group has now also succeeded in Germany in closing a gap that had existed in the over-all system of ballastless superstructure for plain track, switches and crossings. The in-novative s&c solution presented in this re-port offers several advantages as elements within a single package. Quite apart from the high quality and precision of the prefab-ricated s&c slabs, the sophisticated con-cept for installing them shortens the time needed and makes the production of the ballastless track and the assembly of the switches and crossings into two separate operations. This helps prevent contamina-tion of and damage to the s&c components and makes the construction process more flexible.

these through fastenings were transported to the construction site of the future pass-ing point near Eischleben in summer 2012, where they were placed on ground that had been appropriately prepared for them, finely adjusted and then had the base layer of concrete cast underneath them. Once this had hardened, work began on assembling the switches and crossings by bolting the rail supports into place and fastening the s&c rails.


With the installation of the switches and crossings on the ballastless track as part

crossings, which differ from the ones laid in China in terms of their geometry as well as their switching and safety mechanisms – in other words: the plans for the slab seg-ments, details of their fittings, formwork, reinforcements and earthing (Fig. 8).

The company’s own prefabrication works in Gera, which is only about an hour’s journey from the construction site for the new line, is currently busy producing the 600 or so slabs needed to hold the twenty switches and crossings. A CNC drill has been in-stalled there especially for this production line to make the holes needed for the bolts (through connections) for fastening the rail supports extremely accurately to the prefab-ricated slabs. The first slabs incorporating

Fig. 8: Slab-segmentation plan for a switch-and-crossing assembly for turning out to a stopping track, with individually adapted sizes of prefabricated slabs

P.O. Box 11 2092301 Neumarkt, GermanyPhone +49 9181 909-0Fax +49 9181 [email protected]

Proven Quality.Strong Connection.

Construction . Service . Innovation . Operationwww.max-boegl.com

FFB – Slab Track Bögl . FFB TS – Slab Track Bögl for Turnouts and SwitchesLRB – Light Rail Bögl . LRB TS – Slab Track Bögl for Turnouts and SwitchesBÜB – Level Crossing Bögl . BSB – Concrete Sleeper BöglMGB – Maglev Guideway Bögl

RTR 1/201336

The next problem is that rail pads or base-plate pads made of natural rubber (NR) or styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) do not stand up indefinitely to air-borne pollutants, such as ozone or continuous moisture, or contact with reactive metals, such as cop-per. These rubbers turn brittle in such an environment, resulting in the formation of cracks, particularly in locations subjected to mechanical loading, and their proper functioning is jeopardised.

The situation is made worse by the fact that these materials lose their elasticity under recurrent, dynamic loads. Every time a train passes over them they act like a lump of dough pressed between a baker’s hands, in that they are vertically squashed at the same time as being horizontally stretched. It is true that a pad made of NR or SBR returns to its original shape when the load is removed, but constantly changing shape causes long-term fatigue in the materials. The consequence of this is the need to replace the rail pad with a new one. This same disadvantage exists for pads made of polyurethane too.

2 Rail pads and baseplate pads made of microcellular EPDM

Vossloh Fastening System recently launched a durably elastic and thus long-lived and economic alternative in the form of elastic rail pads or highly elastic baseplate pads made of microcellular ethylene propylene di-ene monomer (EPDM) elastomer under the brand name of cellentic.

Elastic rail pads are inserted directly under the foot of the rail. Assuming the profile of the track superstructure has been techni-cally optimised for dealing with vibrations, these pads increase the elasticity of the corresponding systems in ballasted track and reduce the wear on the components of the track system. They are suitable for nearly all railway applications (from light rail and metros to high-speed rail) and can be designed for different stiffness values (20 – 200 kN/mm). The flexibility achieved through using such pads can be beneficial in another way too, namely in bringing down maintenance costs. Studies have shown that the outlay on tamping the tracks is brought down by increasing the elasticity of the rail pads.

Contacts in the wheel/rail system are not always smooth and thus not always quiet. At speeds above 40 km/h, trams, passen-ger trains and freight trains develop into powerful sound emitters, producing a lot of unwanted noise. Any unevenness in the contact surface of the rail, such as corruga-tions (with a short or long pitch), then pro-duce strong mechanical vibrations, causing nearby buildings to shudder on account of the air- or structure-borne noise and putting an end to people’s peace and quiet.

There is one further reason for damping the vibrations in the track, namely the cost of maintenance, which increases in proportion to the level of noise pollution. The elastic-ity of the rail fastening systems plays a de-cisive part in this, no matter whether they have been designed for ballasted or ballast-less track. In ballasted track, the whole of the superstructure contributes to the elastic-ity of the entire system, but that, however, requires the rail fastening to be able to sink by between 0.05 and 0.35 mm when a train passes over. On ballastless track, it is nec-essary to incorporate highly elastic supports able to yield vertically by between 0.8 and 1.5 mm. A distinction is therefore made be-tween thinner rail pads for use with ballasted track and thicker ones, called “baseplate pads”, for use with ballastless track.

1 Shortcomings of conventional rail pads

With stiff rail pads, the element that suffers most on account of the vibrations is the track bed. Rail pads made of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) copolymer with a stiffness of

more than 250 kN/mm, inserted between the foot of the rail and the sleeper, have vir-tually no spring effect. They thus pass the vibrations and their energy into the track bed with virtually no absorption, and the loose ballast stones are shaken about, heated up and rubbed against one another as if in a vibrating sieve. The bed of ballast thus grad-ually collapses and loses its elasticity. The consequence of this is that the track needs to be maintained and regularly tamped, as shown by the white markings in Fig. 1.

Many infrastructure managers of tram and high-speed lines have today reacted to this situation by inserting elastic rail pads. These increase ride comfort and reduce the wear on the track by briefly cushioning the load of passing trains and sharing part of the load with neighbouring sleepers too. Studies have shown that, with stiff fasten-ing systems, the rail passes about 80 % of the load onto just one sleeper immediately beneath it and only about 10 % each to the two neighbouring sleepers. Where elastic fastening systems are used, the load is shared in a very much more even manner. The sleeper immediately below the load re-ceives only half of it (Fig. 2).

Elastic rail pads with a long service lifeRail fastenings ought to maintain their elasticity for a long period of time. One long-lived and economic solution is to install rail pads made of the microcellular material EPDM. Vossloh Fastening Systems (VFS) produces such pads under the product name of cellentic.

Cellentic Product ManagerVossloh Werdohl GmbH D-66687 Wadern-Büschfeld

[email protected]

Werner Koch

Fig. 1: The light-coloured marks indicate where the track needs tamping for various reasons including the use of stiff rail pads lacking a spring effect, which would serve to prevent loss of material. (source of all figures: Vossloh VFS)

RTR 1/2013 37

Elastic rail pads with a long service life

decibels. This has now been installed for the first time on the metro line in Shanghai. Scientific accompaniment for the project is being provided by Tongji University in that city.

This “whispering switch and crossing” also incorporates the know-how of Vossloh Cogi-fer. A specially designed crossing keep the wheel at the precisely same height as it runs over it. This arrangement contributes greatly to reducing rumbling and banging, which cause and wear and tear. This effect is enhanced by the use of the elastic rail-fastening system in combination with a cel-lentic pad. That the noise level is reduced has been confirmed by extensive reference measurements carried out by the Munich University of Technology. In this way a com-pletely new chapter has now started to be written in the history of using cellentic.

4 References from all around the world

Microcellular EPDM now has a long-estab-lished reputation. The material was first de-veloped by Saargummi Deutschland GmbH back in 1994 and patented for use in rail-way tracks. In 2010, the track division of Saargummi, with all its patents, know how and some thirty employees was acquired

On the basis of cellentic, Vossloh Fastening Systems has also developed special formats for rail pads and baseplate pads that pre-vent the rails from tilting, for instance in tight curves or if the rail has only a narrow foot. These pads are arranged so that the ones on the outside of the curve are stiffer than the ones on the inside, but without altering the stiffness of the system as a whole. Geo-metrically, this is achieved through a step-like structure, which leaves more material on the outside than on the inside.

As an additional measure, it is possible to increase elasticity on the inside of a curve by cutting a perfectly circular recess in the rail or baseplate pad. This measure is worth considering, for instance, for highly elastic rail fastening systems with a stiffness of less than 20 kN/mm, such as is stipulated for tram tracks. The reason for this is that high elasticity on the inside reduces the noise produced, whereas high stiffness on the outside guarantees the rail’s stability.

3 Negotiating switches and crossings at a whisper

To round off the range of products on of-fer, there is also a switch-and-crossing unit which reduces the level of noise when trains run over it by between five and eight

Elasticity is brought into play on ballastless tracks by highly elastic baseplate pads. These are inserted between the baseplate (a steel plate that spreads the load) and the support slab made of concrete and be-stow elasticity on the ballastless-track sys-tem as a whole. Their spring stiffness can be anything in the range of 5 – 100 kN/mm.

In its chemical composition, Vossloh cel-lentic has a saturated polymer main chain, which provides a high level of resistance to many types of chemical attack. By contrast, NR and SBR belong to the group of rubbers with unsaturated hydrocarbon chains.

A further advantage is that rail pads and baseplate pads made of cellentic maintain their original shape even under load. The energy which is exerted when a train runs over them is stored temporarily in the small foamed-in air bubbles and then released again without any radical change in the pad’s external geometry. This means that the material suffers much less from me-chanical loading, resulting in a correspond-ing increase in its service life (Fig. 3).

Cellentic’s salient properties can be cata-logued as follows:

� The elasticity can be set, depending on manufacturing parameters, to a value between 5 and 200 kN/mm.

� Excellent absorption of structure-borne noise;

� only a minor change in spring coefficient over the whole temperature range in which it is used (tested from -50° C to +100°C);

� a low frequency dependency between 1 and 30 Hz when subjected to dynamic loading;

� outstanding UV and ozone stability;� excellent resistance to aging and weath-

ering;� very low water absorption given its

closed cell structure, and� favourable life-cycle costs.

Rail pads and baseplate pads made of cel-lentic can be designed for different appli-cations and in different sizes. The decisive parameters for setting the desired stiffness are the thickness of the material and the density of the air bubbles. The process of manufacturing the pads (foaming and vul-canisation) takes place in a single stage, for which the pressure and temperature have to be set to produce the target proper-ties and to ensure that they fit in properly with the rail-fastening system as a whole.

Vossloh Fastening Systems is also able to ensure all its pads are perfectly matched with the properties of appropriate tension clamps. It sees it as part of its function as a system house to provide advice and system testing for infrastructure managers, planning offices and service companies – all from a single source.

Fig. 2: A stiff rail support (left) and an elastic one (right)

Rigid system (crane way) Example of a system with elastic suspension

Unlike other elastic materials, cellentic maintains a stable shape even under dynamic loads which are permanently repeated, and under influence of ozone and changing weather conditions

Elastic rail pads with a long service life

Fig. 4: Rail support “Vossloh 300” for ballastless track

Rail Sleeper screw

Tension clamp

Angular guide plate

Rail support on concrete slab

Rail pad

Baseplate (a steel plate)

Baseplate pad Zwp 104 NT, 22.5 kN/mm, EPDM

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by Vossloh and integrated in its Fasten-ing Systems business unit. The factory in Wadern-Büschfeld has been kept. Starting in 2012, VFS has been marketing microcel-lular EPDM under the name of “cellentic”, which Vossloh Werke GmbH has registered as a trademark in Germany and has also applied to have registered in more than sev-enty countries.

Up until the present, around twenty mil-lion cellentic pads have been delivered all around the world. The Zwp 104 NT base-plate pad, for example, which has a stiff-ness of 22.5 kN/mm (Fig. 4), was sub-jected to a continuous loading test of three million cycles before being used for the “Olympic Line” between Beijing and Tianjin in 2008. In Germany it has been used in

the construction of several high-speed lines as Cologne – Frankfurt and Nuremberg – In-golstadt.

Vossloh AG concluded a general agreement with Deutsch Bahn back in 2003 for the supply of elastic rail pads and highly elastic baseplate pads and a similar one with the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) 2012. In future, only rail pads made of cellentic are to be used in Austria.


The elasticity of the rail fastening is a criti-cal factor in lengthening the service life of the track as a whole and in bringing down its maintenance costs. Stiff plates between the foot of the rail and the sleeper pass the vibrations created by a passing train on to the ballast with virtually no attenuation. As a general rule, however, elastic rail pads are not able to withstand the mechanical and chemical loads that occur over a long pe-riod of time. One alternative, which is both long-lived and economic, is to use elastic rail pads made of microcellular EPDM. For application on ballastless track, the highly elastic baseplate pads are made of the same material. Vossloh Fastening Systems (VFS) now manufactures and markets such pads under the product designation of “cel-lentic”.

RTR 1/2013 39

Product Management Rail Division;ballast mats, mass-spring systems

Getzner Werkstoffe GmbH,A-6706 Bürs

[email protected]

Dipl.-Ing.Mirko Dold

During the installation of the Sylomer® D 220 ballast mats from Getzner, an ex-amination and research assignment was carried out for the Bundesbahn Central Of-fice (BZA) in Minden. The focus of the pro-ject was to investigate the deflection of the rails in subsurfaces of different elasticities when a train passed overhead. Data was obtained for deflections in the:

� Ballasted track directly on the bridge� Ballasted track on the bridge with ballast

mats � Ballasted track on a subgrade

Trackside tests and measurements were taken by TU Munich, the testing institute for the construction of land traffic routes.

2 Application areas of ballast mats

Ballast mats are used to provide structure-borne sound insulation in dense urban areas where railway lines pass close to buildings. Other uses include the protection of structures and buildings sensitive to vi-brations, such as concert halls, museums,

The bridge where the ballast mats were in-stalled long ago is the Bartelsgraben bridge (Fig. 1). It is located near Würzburg in the southern section of the Hanover – Würzburg high-speed line which was put into service in June 1988, three years before the rest of the line went into service. The bridge is 1160 metres long and carries two tracks. Construction of the pre-stressed concrete box-girder bridge began in 1984 and was completed in 1986. Its longest supported span between pillars measures 58 metres. The line initially describes a 10,000 m ra-dius curve before straightening out. The gradient falls steadily by 12.5 %.

Long-term behaviour of Sylomer® ballast mats

Inspection and stiffness tests of a 21-year old Sylomer® D 220 ballast mat lying on a DB railway bridge within the Hanover-Würzburg high-speed line showed no relevant change in its properties.

Product Management Rail Division

Getzner Werkstoffe GmbH,A-6706 Bürs

[email protected]

Dipl.-Ing.Stefan Potocan, MSc

Fig. 1: Bartelsgraben Bridge (source: Wikipedia, photograph: Störfix, 01.07.2006)

1 Installation of the mats

The ballast mats were installed in 1987. They were delivered in rolls and laid out on the cleaned subsurface. After laying out, the mats were folded back halfway on one side. Using a two-component PU adhesive, the mats were spot-bonded on the bridge according to the DB AG installation instruc-tions for ballast mats. The other half was bonded during a second work step. Bonding in this way ensured that the mats did not move during the later ballasting process. In terms of noise requirements, bonding to the subsurface is generally not necessary to guarantee effectiveness (Fig. 2).

RTR 1/201340


million load cycles, which corresponds to a figure seven times higher than that defined in DB TL 918071. The static and dynam-ic stiffness of the removed sample were measured and compared against the val-ues when the mat was new. These variables can be used to show the creep behaviour and the performance of the ballast mat.

4 Visual inspection

The visual inspection of the ballast mast reveals some plastic indentations from indi-vidual ballast stones in the load distribution layer of the D 220 ballast mat. Due to the load distribution through the ballast, these indentations typically occur directly in the loading area of the sleeper and thus meet with expectations. This effect was also ob-served following the creep behaviour testing undertaken at the time. The indentations in-dicate that the ballast stones were properly embedded in the load distribution layer and load peaks on the ballast/concrete contact areas had been permanently avoided. As a result the loading on the superstructure was lower, which ultimately led to lower maintenance costs due to the stable track bed and longer tamping intervals. No signs of damage to or perforations in the load dis-tribution layer could be established (Fig. 3). We can therefore conclude that the ballast mat withstood the high mechanical loads and will continue to satisfy all its functional requirements for decades to come.

5 Testing and results

5.1 Static stiffness

The static stiffness of the removed bal-last mat was determined according to DB TL 918071. The test was conducted on samples measuring 500 x 500 mm. Secant stiffness was evaluated between the load points 0.02 and 0.1 N/mm2. A static bed-ding modulus of 0.0529 N/mm3 was cal-

volume compressible, negating the need for any profiling or cavities to achieve the de-sired elasticity. The thickness of the micro-cellular materials is selected to achieve the desired static and dynamic stiffness.

3 Two decades later

While renewing the ballast on the Bartels-graben Bridge between Würzburg and Hano-ver, DB AG removed a test sample of the Getzner D 220 ballast mat. The extract in question was taken from a mat installed in 1987. For 21 years it had suffered an oper-ational load of approx. 384 million tonnes. This tonnage is far in excess of the load stipulated under fatigue strength testing as per DB TL 918071 [1]. At the time the mats were supplied a load cycle of 2.5 million was required as the prerequisite for instal-lation on railway lines operated by Deutsche Bahn. Based on an axle load of 22 tonnes, we can calculate a fatigue stress of 17.5

hospitals, historic buildings or vibration-sensitive laboratory, testing or measuring equipment. Ballast mats also reduce the secondary airborne noise radiation from bridges.

They are an economical and proven method of increasing the elasticity of the ballasted track and bring about a long-term improve-ment in track bed quality and ride comfort. Extended tamping intervals and higher track availability has a positive impact on life cycle costs.

Ballast mats generally have a two-layered structure. The load distribution layer is on the side exposed to the ballast and pro-tects the layer below from the sharp-edged ballast stones. It also ensures an even load distribution. Embedded ballast stones increase the load transfer area, prevent the premature destruction of the ballast and also protect the track bed. The spring layer is made of microcellular polyurethane mate-rials. This structure makes the ballast mats

Fig. 3: Removed ballast mat showing indentations from ballast stonesFig. 2: Installation of the D 220 ballast mat on the Bartelsgraben Bridge in 1987

Fig. 4: Measuring static stiffness on the D 220 ballast mat sample (before installation and after removal)

Pre

ssur

e [N

/mm

2 ]

measured 2008

0,25

0,2

0,15

0,1

0,05

00 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

measured 1987

Deflection [mm]


culated, which met the specification at the time of 0.06 (+/– 0.01) N/mm3. Compared with the value measured on a new ballast mat by TU Munich [2] (0.0571 N/mm3), this represents a change of 7.9 % after 21 years in-situ (Fig. 4).

5.2 Dynamic stiffness

The dynamic stiffness was measured on 200 x 200 mm samples according to the dynamic properties measurement speci-fied by the Müller BBM 12506/1 report [3] of January 1986, in which preloads of 0.03 N/mm2 and 0.1 N/mm2 were applied at a test frequency of 40 Hz. The removed ballast mat returned values of 0.092 N/mm3 (0.03 N/mm2 preload) and 0.090 N/mm3 (0.1 N/mm2 preload). Compared with 1986, this corresponds to a deviation of 11.2 % and 9.6 % (Table 1).

6 Summary

The sample tested showed no relevant change in its properties (less than 15 %) after 21 years under the track and having withstood 384 million tonnes. During these 21 years, the ballast mat was installed on a bridge and exposed to all the associat-

the mat can be found even when subjected to the closest scrutiny. This result shows that ballast mats made from Sylomer® are largely unaffected by weathering effects. It is expected that the ballast mats will con-tinue to remain completely effective for an-other 30 years at least.

References[1] DB TL 918071 – 1978 edition[2] Müller BBM Report 12506/ 1[3] TU Munich Report GÜ 49/ 89

Preload 0.03 N/mm³ dyn. bedding modulus Cdyn

at room temperature

[N/mm3]

Change [%]

Preload 0.1 N/mm³ dyn. bedding modulus Cdyn

at room temperature

[N/mm3]

Change [%] Result

Mat D 220 before instal-lation

0.083

11.2

0.082

9.6 OKMat D 220 21 years after instal-lation and 384 million tonnes

0.092 0.090

Table 1: Comparison of ballast mat dynamic data at the time of installation and after removal

ed weathering effects, together with thou-sands of frost-thaw transitions. Water has had no negative impact on the properties of the ballast mat. The testing, which is in a way equivalent to a real-life long-term test, has shown that ballast mats made from Sylomer® provide sustained effectiveness and do not exhibit any noteworthy signs of ageing or degradation.

The values measured are still within the tolerances (+/– 15 %) which were valid at the time of installation and which remain so to this day. No cracks or perforations in

— Rail pads— Baseplate pads— Elastic insert pads for sleeper boots— Sleeper pads

Getzner‘s range of elastic components for track superstructures consists of the following:

— Ballast mats— Bearings for mass-spring system — Embedded rail— Continuous rail bearing

Elastic Solutions for Track Superstructure

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Herrenau 56706 BürsAustriaT +43-5552-201-0F [email protected]

RTR 1/201342

tionary and mobile (hand-held) diagnostic devices that carry out a vibration analysis to determine, in particular, the condition of the axle bearings. Comoran is aiming to take this diagnostic process one step fur-ther and to perform it during normal opera-tions.

2 How it works

The RST TSI (in its latest version dated February 2008) lays down the compulsory operational requirements for monitoring the bogies of high-speed trains. It states that individual wheels or wheel sets that have become blocked or derailed, unstable run-ning behavior and hot axle boxes must be reported to the train driver immediately (Fig. 1). For several years, Knorr-Bremse has already been implementing these functions in numerous high-speed trains, such as the ICE2, ICE3 and the Velaro trains for Spain, Russia and China. It therefore seemed an obvious step to transpose these functions to other rail vehicles too.

The data that is in any case generated by the monitoring functions is used addition-ally for an online diagnostic system, which is able to detect the slightest signs of wear and tear. Comoran’s most important func-tion is to monitor the vibrations of bogie parts, especially the axle bearings. If this data is combined with values derived from experience for determining the residual ser-vice life it becomes possible to organise maintenance of components as a function of their condition.

The system includes both functional sub-assemblies for safety-relevant monitoring in accordance with the TSI, and evaluation devices for extensive condition monitoring. Since these are integrated into the brake control, the result is an attractively priced solution – and not just for high-speed trains according to the categories defined in the RST TSI. Integration of vibration analysis into the brake control system makes it pos-sible to use it for all other classes of vehi-cles as well.

Anyone operating trains ought always to have a full picture of the condition of the safety-relevant components of their trains. Knorr-Bremse has joined forces with SKF CMC, the specialist for industrial condition monitoring to develop a system called CO-MORAN (Condition Monitoring for Railway Applications), which combines the safety-relevant monitoring of bogies with extensive condition monitoring. The combination of these two functions provides the input for performing condition-based maintenance of bogie components, ensuring that trains are only taken into maintenance depots when components are genuinely in need of main-tenance.

1 Maintenance intervals and life-cycle costs

Of course, the railway industry has changed beyond all recognition since its early days, but, along with safety and reliability, two other parameters have remained the same for appraising the economic performance of railway systems, namely life-cycle costs (LCCs) and total cost of ownership (TCO). Both of these ought to be as low as pos-sible.

Long before the railway sector started using terms like LCCs or TCO, the issues of costs and efficiency were already amongst the big challenges it faced. The purchase price for a steam locomotive was worked out on the basis of its coal consumption, and the outlay on labor and spare parts was spread

over the number of kilometers it was ex-pected to run. In the infancy of the railways, repairs of wearing parts were carried out on the spot as required, whereas it has today become common practice to perform them at regular maintenance intervals. These are staggered on the basis of the number of kilometers run or the number of hours of service, and costing them for particular forms of deployment includes specific fac-tors such as the state of the railway line or extreme environmental influences.

In order to ensure that the operational safety and availability of the vehicles is not jeopardized, these maintenance intervals always include a safety buffer to make up for unexpectedly high wear. The outcome of this, however, is that trains tend to be taken out of operation for maintenance ear-lier than necessary on the basis of the set intervals for maintaining their bogie compo-nents. As a result some of the kilometers that it would have been possible to run are not actually run in practice.

Against this background, preventive diagno-sis for the early detection of wear and tear is becoming increasingly important. Opera-tors of railway fleets are able to significantly extend the service intervals for bogie com-ponents such as axle bearings and wheels with the help of continuous diagnosis, since it is no longer necessary for the parts to be taken into the maintenance facility on the basis of a rigid schedule.

At present, a number of railway operators are performing initial trials with both sta-

COMORAN – Condition monitoring for railway applications

It is becoming increasingly important to make sure that railway vehicles undergo maintenance as a function of their true condition. COMORAN is a system developed by Knorr-Bremse to achieve precisely that as far as bogie components are concerned.

Manager of brake-control development in the Brake Control Center of Competence

Knorr-Bremse, Munich, Germany

[email protected]

Dipl.-Ing. Marc-Oliver Herden

Project manager, bogie diagnosis development in the Brake Control Center of Competence

Knorr-Bremse, Munich, Germany

[email protected]

Dipl.-Ing. Ulf Friesen

RTR 1/2013 43


possible to detect hot axle boxes, instabil-ity and derailment to satisfy safety integrity level 2 (SIL2).

Expanding the wheel-slide protection sys-tem by adding a second monitoring board makes it possible to have a redundant system structure (Fig. 5) with additional independent measurement of temperature on the axle bearings and transversal accel-eration on the bogie frame. In the unlikely event of a fault in one of the two systems, the failed function can be taken over in its entirety by the other one. Moreover, this system is capable of reading in other meas-urement signals from acceleration sensors in order to be able to monitor, for instance, traction motors or transmissions. SKF’s many years of experience in the vibration diagnosis of rotating engine transmission units, turbines and wind power converters is put to good use with this system.

3.3 Monitoring board

The RB06A monitoring board (Fig. 6) is comprised of two electronic cards. The first of these, an SR card (for safety-relevant

3.2 System architecture

Comoran fits in with the modular design of Knorr-Bremse's brake control system. It con-sists of the electronic evaluation unit, the RB06A monitoring board and multifunctional sensors for rotational speed, temperature and acceleration in the bogie. Given that the evaluation unit is integrated into the wheel-slide protection system, its system configuration has been taken as the basis for configuring the others. Depending on requirements and vehicle type, this is done one vehicle at a time or one bogie at a time.

In addition, a redundant expansion of the system (again not requiring any additional space) has become possible by adding a unit for detection of non-rotating axles in-dependently of wheel-slide protection, using a monitoring board. Figure 3 illustrates the principal items in the system architecture of a brake control system along with an in-dependent DNRA functionality and instabili-ty detector, as currently implemented on the ICE2 and ICE3 trains. Figure 4 shows the extension of this system architecture with the addition of a bogie diagnostic system. With this single-channel architecture, it is

Given that such forecasts are capable of creating tremendous added value in a large number of fields of application, the condi-tion monitoring of components or entire systems is finding its way into increasing numbers of industrial applications. Take the example of monitoring wind power con-verters, where it is obvious for economic reasons that maintenance work ought to be carried out as far as possible at those times of the year when the winds are light-est. This is one area in which condition management has already been the stand-ard for several years.

It thus made sense to set up a coopera-tive program between SKF, an experienced specialist in condition monitoring, and Knorr-Bremse, a systems expert in railway vehicle applications. The basic aims of con-dition monitoring of wind power converters are ultimately identical to those of railway operations, namely detecting damage reli-ably at an early stage and thus preventing any further deterioration. Unexpected train cancellations can be avoided and overhaul or repair measures do not have to be car-ried out until they are strictly necessary. Both of these help minimise spare-parts inventories and thus bring down operating costs.

3 The Comoran system

3.1 Based on the braking and wheel-slide protection system

The new functions have been integrated into a subsystem that already exists on trains, namely braking and wheel-slide pro-tection (Fig. 2). There are several reasons why this is a logical approach to take:

� The overall complexity is reduced by grouping several functions together into a single subsystem. This enables redun-dant structures to be set up, which costs less and still ensures adequate system availability.

� Additional speed sensors are superflu-ous in this instance. The speed signals already generated by the wheel-slide protection systems can be picked up di-rectly by the diagnostic function.

� Data can be transmitted to the train con-trol unit using existing interfaces and communication channels.

The sensors for measuring speed are lo-cated directly on the bogies. The pneu-matic and electronic components of the braking system as well as the wheel-slide protection are housed either inside or un-derneath the vehicle body. Integration into the brake control system means there is no need for any additional space or hous-ing. The key point, however, is that the power supply and the electronic interface to the train control can be used by both systems in parallel.

Fig. 1: Monitoring and diagnosis of components and their operational condition (Figs. 1-7: Knorr-Bremse)

Fig. 2: Components of a wheel-slide protection system with integrated bogie diagnosis

RTR 1/201344


applications), implements the monitoring functions and was thus developed in ac-cordance with the SIL2 requirements. The CM card (condition monitoring) governs the extensive and flexibly configurable interpre-tation of acceleration and temperature sig-nals. Communication with the train control system uses the same interfaces as com-munication with the wheel-slide protection and rotation monitoring system. An addi-tional Ethernet diagnostic interface is avail-able for the condition monitoring functions.

3.4 Sensor systems

For the purpose of capturing the measure-ments, the wheel-slide protection control not only has speed sensors on each axle bearing but also additional temperature and acceleration sensors (Fig. 7). On the other hand, to avoid an unnecessary multiplica-tion of the number of components and as-sociated interfaces mounted directly on the axle bearings, Knorr-Bremse has developed a new generation of multifunctional sensor. These devices contain various sensor ele-ments with a shared mechanical interface to the bearing housing, grouped together in a single standard speed sensor. The spe-cial axle-bearing units offered by SKF as an alternative for signal capture also use the same method for reducing the number of components and interfaces. The sensor components are already directly integrated into them.

3.5 Condition monitoring and diagnosis

In addition to the monitoring functions laid down in the TSI, the monitoring board also integrates the diagnostic functions that reli-ably recognize wear and tear on the bogie components. Using the signals from the speed sensor in the wheel-slide protection governor and the acceleration values on the wheel-bearing housings, it is possible to set up permanent monitoring of the wheel bearings and contact surface for flat spots and out-of-roundness (Fig. 8). For this pur-pose the same accelerometers are used as those that supply the signals for derailment detection.

The basis for the diagnosis is the dynamic bearing frequencies. By evaluating the spe-cific frequency components of the individual bearing parts as a function of the bearing geometry and rotational speed, it is pos-sible to identify even extremely small dif-ferences caused by wear at an early stage using analysis of the frequency spectrum produced (Fig. 9). As wear on the bearing progresses, it is thus possible to react to the condition messages at the correct point in time.

It is similarly possible to monitor engine units, gearbox components, shafts and couplings by means of additional acceler-

Fig. 3: Principal elements in the system architecture of a brake control including rotation monitoring and detection of instabilities

Fig. 4: Extension of rotation monitoring with the addition of a monitoring board for bogie diagnosis

Fig. 5: Architecture of a brake control and rotation-monitoring system with the addition of bogie diagnosis including inbuilt redundancy

RTR 1/2013 45


ometers. The vibration patterns to be evalu-ated for this purpose vary according to the installed traction power. The analysis also needs information about the train speed, load and transmis-sion power. These are available for no extra outlay, as a result of sharing the use of the train interface with the brake control.

All the diagnostic functions can be operated on the monitoring board through the sepa-rate Ethernet interface. Special service tools are available for evaluating and con-figuring the condition monitoring system.

4 Test and market launch

In order to validate Comoran’s operational capability, Knorr-Bremse began with a test run using a local passenger train under real conditions. One coach, which was operat-ing with a faulty bearing, had a temporary Comoran diagnostic unit installed on it. The aim was to identify the damaged compo-nent and obtain reference measurements from it. Taking the measurements made on the left-hand bearing on wheel set 2, the Comoran system managed to establish a strong indication for wear or damage on the outer ring (Fig. 10). The vibration spectrum on this bearing shows the characteristic de-fect frequencies on an outer ring (Fig. 11).

Since 2010, a Comoran test installation has being monitoring a wheel-set bearing on a local passenger train in continuous operation. A GPRS modem transmits the pre-processed data to a database server, and a special software tool then generates a continuous report on the condition of the monitored components (Fig. 12).

Since early 2011, one of the axle bearings has been showing initial indications of wear on its outer ring. The measurements have been plotted as a trend over time and ana-lyzed. It is a technique that can easily be used for monitoring when pre-set thresh-olds are reached (Fig. 13).

Fig. 7: Multi-functional sensor on the housing of an axle-bearing boxFig. 6: The RB06A monitoring board

Fig. 8: Establishment of the out-of-roundness of a wheel with the associated measurement signal (Fig.: SKF)

Fig. 9: Frequency spectrum of a bearing with minor faults(Fig.: SKF)

RTR 1/201346


The next stage is to use the observed trend in the wear indication on the bogie moni-tored to derive reliable recommendations for action to be taken. If, for instance, the sensors report relatively constant levels for the characteristic values for several months and then suddenly show a perceptible in-crease in the bearing frequencies, it would be advisable to replace the part concerned.

Following on from the two tests described above, Knorr-Bremse now intends to broad-en its programme. The plan is to extend the system to two or more whole trains and thus to be able to monitor a larger number of axle bearings. With this field deployment, the intention is also to introduce commu-nication, data evaluation and associated services. The aim is to generate event re-ports that categorise the condition of the axle bearings, applying a simple multi-stage appraisal system, and then to describe any action that may be needed. The train opera-tors are thus given a permanent overview of the current state of wear of axle bear-ings as well as any other monitored compo-nents. They can subsequently use this to synchronise replacement of these compo-nents with other maintenance cycles, such as those of wheels, thereby optimising the maintenance process and, in the final anal-ysis, reducing costs.

Fig. 10: Examination of a bearing on a local passenger train (Figs. 10-12: Knorr-Bremse)

Fig. 11: Damage detected on the outer ring of a bearing

Fig. 12: Architecture of the test system

Fig. 13: Trend in the characteristic values of the bearing’s outer ring (March to September 2011; yellow line: warning threshold; red line: alarm threshold)(Fig.: SKF)

1 Vehicle 10 Signalling & Traincontrol

2 Components and Equipment passenger vehicle 11 Electrification & Energy

3 Components & Equipment freight cars 12 Construction Engineering

4 Bogies & Running car 13 Stations & Stop premises

5 Traction Technology Diesel vehicles 14 Passenger Information & Services

6 Traction Technology Electric vehicles 15 Cargo handling technology

7 Control & Gear 16 Consulting & Construction

8 Vehicle Maintenance 17 Services

9 Infrastructure and Technology 18 Information

This Railway Buyer’s Guide comes out four times a year in RTR – Rail Technology Review plus four times a year in RTR Country features. You decide where to place your entry. Each entry includes your company logo (4 colour), address and communication data plus a description of your products and services.

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47RTR 1/2013

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Points heating9.15

Point Machines, Point Components, Rolling Stock Components

Friedrich Hippe

Maschinenfabrik + Gerätebau GmbHToepferstrasse 25 · 49170 Hagen a.T.W. · Germany

Phone +49 (5405) 616700-0 · Fax +49 (5405) 616700-150

E-Mail: [email protected] · Web: www.friedrich-hippe.de

Vehicles1Railroad vehicles1.16

Switch point machine9.14

Point Machines, Point Components, Rolling Stock Components

Friedrich Hippe

Maschinenfabrik + Gerätebau GmbHToepferstrasse 25 · 49170 Hagen a.T.W. · Germany

Phone +49 (5405) 616700-0 · Fax +49 (5405) 616700-150

E-Mail: [email protected] · Web: www.friedrich-hippe.de

Axle counters9.17

Reliable and efficient wheel detection and axle counting systems

Frauscher Sensortechnik GmbHGewerbestraße 1 · 4774 St. MarienkirchenTelefon: +43 7711 2920-0 · Fax: +43 7711 2920-25E-Mail: [email protected] · Web: www.frauscher.com

Our Service Areas: Track, Rail, Switch, Overhead Line,

Signal and Consultancy

EURAILSCOUT Inspection & AnalysisNiederlassung BerlinTorellstrasse 1, 10243 BerlinTel.: +49 (0) 30 293808-50Fax: +49 (0) 30 293808-51E-Mail: [email protected]: www.eurailscout.com

Infrastructure and

technology9Permanent Way9.10

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Noise protection 9.25

Herrenau 56706 BürsAustriaT +43-5552-201-0 F +43-5552-201-1899 [email protected]

Axleboxes; Bearings4.5

Bogies & Running car4AWS Achslagerwerk Staßfurt GmbH

Gears; Shafts; couplings5.7

Traction Techlogy

Diesel vehicles5AWS Achslagerwerk Staßfurt GmbH

Gears; Shafts; couplings6.5

Traction Technology

Electric vehicles6AWS Achslagerwerk Staßfurt GmbH

Ad deadline for RTR 2/13

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22.3.2013

RTR 1/2013 49

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Export von Bahnbaumaschinen Gesellschaft m.b.H.Johannesgasse 3 ·A-1010 Wien · AUSTRIATelefon: +43 (0) 1 515 72 - 0Fax: +43 (0) 1 513 18 01E-Mail: [email protected]: www.plassertheurer.com

Production of maschines for permanent way, caternary

lines and maintenance

Heavy machinery

and tower cranes9.31




Ballast tamping machines9.34




Surveying9.37

Measuring equipment

and -systems9.33

Overhead line equipment9.36

Overhead contact systems for light- and heavy rail,

trolleybus and tramway – for the entire world.

Kummler+Matter LtdHohlstrasse 176CH-8026 Zurich · SwitzerlandPhone: +41-44/2 47 47 47Fax: +41-44/2 47 47 66E-Mail: www.kuma.chWeb: [email protected]




Railway track machinery9.27

As prime contractor we undertake railway engineering

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Rhomberg Bahntechnik GmbHMariahilfstraße 296900 Bregenz, Austriafon: +43 5574 403-220fax: +43 5574 403-309E-Mail: [email protected]: www.rhombergrail.com

Electrification

& Energy11Catenary line vehicles11.3







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Consultants and Engineers16.4

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Rail grinding machines9.30

Manufacturer of Rail Milling and Grinding Trains for

reprofiling of the rail head.

LINSINGER

Maschinenbau GmbHDr. Linsinger-Str. 24 A-4662 SteyrermühlPhone: +43 7613 8840 · Fax: +43 7613 8840-951E-Mail: [email protected]: www.linsinger.com

Track maintenance9.32

Manufacturer of Rail Milling and Grinding Trains for

reprofiling of the rail head.

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Categories1 Vehicles

2 Components and equipment passenger vehicle

3 Components & Equipment freight cars

4 Bogies & Running car

5 Traction Technology Diesel vehicles

6 Traction Technology Electric vehicles

7 Control & Gear

8 Vehicle maintenance

9 Infrastructure and technology

10 Signalling & Traincontrol

11 Electrification & Energy

12 Construction Engineering

13 Stations & Stop premises

14 Passenger Information & Services

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Information18

Vol.18 | No.2 | 2012 | November 18 2012 2 11

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Organisation Chart

CEN/TC 256 Railway Applications is preparing a new business planIn 1990 the European Standardisa-tion Committee was created driven by the political wish to facilitate in-teroperability between the different countries in Europe. Today, TC 256 has 48 working groups, which are organised in three Subcommittees (SC). Until 2011 these subcommittees covered only partial aspects of the Railway domain: SC 1 Rail, SC 2 Bo-gies, SC 3 Brakes.Two aspects forced a reorganisa-

tion of TC 256, which ended up in a change of title of these SCs and a new allocation of existing working groups:

� due to mandated Standardisa-tion work by the European Com-mission the number of Work Items increased and communi-cation between the involved ac-tors was difficult to handle

� Dee Razdan, who chaired the TC for over 12 years tried to reduce

the work for the chairman, name-ly the number of working groups directly controlled by him.

The picture shows the situation with the new names:

SC 1 – Infrastructure, SC 2 – Rolling Stock Products SC 3 – Rolling Stock Systems

In 2011 Dee Razdan handed over the chairman ship to Keith Rose,

who had been proposed by BSI (Brit-ish Standards Institute).In 2012, the management team has been completed with a new secretary. Rüdiger Wendt from DIN took over the secretariat, which is in hands of Germany since the crea-tion.In 2013, the TC has been asked to prepare a new business plan, which will be valid for three years.

ISO/TC 269 "Railway Applications" launches its activity177 years after the first run of a train in Germany, the Kick-off Meet-ing of the ISO Technical Committee for Railway Applications took place at DIN headquarters in Berlin on 2012-10-30/31. One year ago, the application for the creation of ISO/TC 269 has been submitted to ISO by DIN with the support of AFNOR and has met broad approval.Mr. Rüdiger Marquardt, Deputy Direc-tor of DIN, and Dr. Alois Weschta, Chairman of the DIN/FSF Advisory Board, opened the meeting with a warm welcome to 50 delegates who

followed this invitation. Not only Eu-ropean countries such as Germany, France, Great Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Portugal were represented but also participants from Russia, the Repub-lic of Korea, China, Japan and South Africa were attending the meeting. Mr. Franco Cavalliere, Chairman of IEC/TC 9 "Electrical equipment and systems for railway", Mr. Keith Rose, Chairman of CEN/TC 256 "Railway Applications" as well as representa-tives of the International Union of Railways (UIC) were present.

Under the Chairmanship of Mr. Yuji Nishie from Japan, the meeting fo-cussed on organisational issues. Mr. Andrew Dryden (ISO) gave a clear and detailed explanation of ISO rules and a Strategic Business Plan proposal which has been dis-tributed before the meeting has been intensively discussed. Within a short time, the delegates agreed to appoint Mr. Jan Anders (Germany) as Liaison Officer for ISO/TC 269 and IEC/TC 9. Discussions about further liaisons with different TCs and other organisations have been postponed.

In addition to the decision of creat-ing a Chairman Advisory Group, the main topic was to decide on the creation of three Ad-hoc Groups. One of these Ad-hoc Groups will cover the topic "Generic Standards" with Mr. Y. Nakajima (Japan) as rap-porteur. There will also be an Ad-hoc Group on "HVAC Systems" with Mr. K. Sugiyama (Japan) as rapporteur and another Ad-hoc Group will cover the topic "Brake Calculation" with Mr. Jörg Bober (Germany) as rap-porteur. Members of these groups will be assigned to develop titles »

Standardisation report 1/13 FSF

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FSF Standardisation report 1/13

Chairman's Address at the First Plenary Meeting of ISO/TC 269The Japanese Standardisation In-stitute proposed Mr. Yuji Nishie as Chairman of the ISO/TC 269 "Rail-way Applications". The proposal has been confirmed by positive votes of the active member countries in the Technical Comittee. Mr. Yuji Nishie has international experience and has worked his whole professional life in the field of railway technology. Recently he has been appointed as Director Information Management Devision inside des Railway Inter-national Standards Center (RISC) of RTRI in Japan. His welcome at the Kick-off meeting of ISO/TC 269 can be read below:

Introduction

[…] Ladies and gentlemen. I'm Yuji Nishie from the Railway Technical Research Institute, or RTRI, of Ja-pan Railways Group.I am really honored to have been appointed to the first Chairman of newly established ISO/TC 269 for Railway Applications. I am sup-posed to undertake a great task of being Chairman of our TC. […]First of all, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Mr. Ruediger Marquardt, Vice Director of German Institute for Standardisation (DIN), and Dr. Alois Weschta, Chairman of FSF/DIN, for their warm welcome and for hosting this Meeting at this wonderful venue. […]It is also very nice to have so many distinguished participants from so many national bodies around the world.Today, we also have guests invited from other organizations.We have Mr. Franco Cavaliere, Chair-man of IEC/TC 9 for Electrical Equip-ment and Systems for Railways.

And, Mr. Bernard Lerouge, Secretary of IEC/TC 9 is also here.We have Mr. Keith Rose, Chairman of CEN/TC 256 for Railway Appli-cations. And, Secretary of CEN/TC 256, Mr. Wendt is also here.And, we have a powerful supporter today. Let me introduce Mr. Andrew Dryden, Technical Programme Man-ager of ISO Central Secretariat who would help our discussion at this meeting.Thank you all for taking time to join this meeting.

Backgrounds and Policy

In recent years, the advantages of railway transportation, which is less harmful to the global environment, has been re-evaluated, as people around the world become increas-ingly aware of the issues of climate changes caused by the global warm-ing.In the meantime, in developing countries, the rapid, mass trans-portation capacity of railways has attracted more and more attention as a booster of economic develop-ment, and, actually, so many rail-way construction projects includ-ing high-speed rails, urban transit systems and freight railways are currently being planned around the globe.Since the railway service started its commercial operation in the United Kingdom in the early 19th century for the first time in the world, rail-ways have enriched people’s life and contributed a lot to developing the societies and economies, dur-ing these 200 years. It has already been almost 50 years since the age of high-speed rail was started with the opening of the Jap-anese Shinkansen in 1964. And now, we can witness a number of

high-speed rail networks are rapidly expanding in Europe, North Ameri-ca, and East Asia.On the other hand, however, there are so many developing countries which haven’t yet benefited from the high level of safety, environmen-tal sustainability, convenience, and cost efficiency of railway systems. In order to spread rail systems to all those countries as quickly and efficiently as possible, and to have their peoples enjoy the advantages and benefits of railways, global Standardisation in the rail field is absolutely essential. And in promoting the Standardisa-tion activities, it will be highly impor-tant to maintain openness, trans-parency, and impartiality, which ISO has stressed, and to materialise the policy of Global Relevance, in accordance with ISO/IEC Directives.The establishment of ISO/TC 269 was proposed by Germany and France last November, and approved by ISO/Technical Management Board in April this year.We, this ISO/TC 269, have a twin brother, IEC/TC 9 for Electrical Equipments and Systems for Rail-ways. I want to call it a twin brother, but this brother was born as early as in 1924, 88 years ago. Since then, TC 9 has contributed a lot to the Standardisation in those fields. During these years, the world econ-omy, industries, and people’s life have dramatically been globalised, and railways are no exception.At this ISO/TC 269, we will be dealing with the fields other than the ones covered by IEC/TC 9. At the same time, in close coordina-tion with IEC/TC 9, we have to ad-dress the growing needs to further globalise railways through our work to standardise these vast scope of

railway technologies as more com-prehensive, coherent systems.( in a wider perspective). Together with all of you here, and with the help of related experts, I would like to fully dedicate myself to our activities of ISO/TC 269 to meet the expectations from the stakeholders such as railway opera-tors, infrastructure managers, man-ufacturers, construction companies, governmental offices, and so on..

Conclusion

Today is a very special day for us. On behalf of all of the members, I would like to declare here the inau-guration of ISO/TC 269 for Railway Applications.We have a lot of issues to be dis-cussed, such as final title, scope, structure, Strategic Business Plan and so on, I look forward to your ac-tive and vocal participation during this meeting, and I would greatly ap-preciate your help and cooperation to keep this meeting going well and to reach a fruitful success.Thank you for your attention.

Mr. Yuji Nishie, Chairman of ISO/TC 269 (Foto: Railway International Standards Center (RISC))

and scopes for standards on these topics.Altogether, it was a very harmonic meeting which thrived on dynamic dialogues between the delegates not only within the meeting. Social events as a welcome drink at the roof garden of the DIN building the night before as well as a boat trip through the city of Berlin at the end of the first meeting day contributed to constructive discussions.In the presence of an employee of the Japanese embassy in Berlin, the Japanese delegation invited all participants to hold the next Plenary Meeting of ISO/TC 269 in Tokyo, Ja-pan, at the end of November 2013.

The first ISO/TC 269 Meeting was characterised by a great atmosphere among the 50 delegates

RTR 1/2013 53

Different definitions for systems in different countries are one of the difficulties in the field of Urban Rail. What are the characteristics of a Tram Train – here Regiotram in Kassel, Germany?

European legislation and Standardisation in the field of Urban Rail1. Overall background and current

situation

Starting in 1991, the European Un-ion has adopted and regularly updat-ed “railway packages” promoting the emergence of a single railway mar-ket throughout the Community and targeting three objectives: market liberalisation, physical interoperabil-ity and technical harmonisation. The legislation scope has been gradually extended and covers also “Urban Rail”, that is urban, suburban and re-gional passenger rail systems: how-ever Member States may exclude some local rail systems from the measures they adopt in implementa-tion of the directives, following the guidelines set up by the European Railway Agency to draw the limit between the scope of the Technical Specifications for Interoperability -TSIs- and urban transport (see also http://www.era.europa.eu/Docu-ment-Register/Pages/Report-Study-on-the-limit-between-the-scope-of-the-TSIs-and-urban-transport.aspx).In order to clarify the technical rules to be applied for Urban Rail the rail associations representative of the ur-ban rail sector, i.e. UITP - the Interna-tional Association of Public Transport - and UNIFE - the Association of the European rail Industry - created the “Urban Rail Platform” – URP – which presented in November 2008 to the European Commission a position stating that interoperability between networks is not a target for local, ur-ban and suburban rail, given the di-versity of the networks and their local character, but that on the other hand, achieving on a voluntary basis an ap-propriate level of urban rail technical harmonisation would allow the mar-ket working more efficiently if econo-mies of scale could be achieved, if cross acceptance of products could be facilitated and if some non-trans-parent rules could be clarified or re-moved. This would help expanding public transport market share, and as the European rail industry is a world leader it would also be benefi-cial for European competitiveness. The European Commission services “addressed in February 2009 the clarification of the scope of the In-teroperability Directive 2008/57/EC as far as lines and vehicles used for local, urban and subur-ban services are concerned. The conclusion of this analysis was a three-folded approach including the following actions:

1. exclusion of urban rail and clarifi-cation of the scope;

2. development of a dedicated urban rail European voluntary standardisation framework; and

3. development of essential re-quirements for urban transport.

The first action was initiated in Oc-tober 2009, when the Commission services invited Member States to exclude from the scope of the measures transposing Directive 2008/57/EC the cases (a) and (b) defined in its article 1(3):

(a) metros, trams and other light rail systems;

(b) networks that are functionally separate from the rest of the railway system and intended only for the operation of local, urban or suburban passenger services, as well as railway un-dertakings operating solely on these networks.

This was to avoid the situation of a Member State applying the Directive to cases de facto not covered by the TSIs. Such situation would in fact imply Member States notifying all national rules in use for metro, tram and light rail systems in absence of TSIs and following for these systems all the procedures set out by the Directive for heavy rail, which would lead to a disproportionate adminis-trative, technical and legal burden. The second action was formally initiated in February 2011, when the Commission issued the man-date M/486 EN addressed to CEN-CENELEC and ETSI, the Eu-ropean Standardisation Organisa-tions – ESOs –, to develop voluntary standards in the field of urban rail (“Mandate for programming and Standardisation addressed to the European Standardisation bodies in the field of Urban Rail”).The third action was completed in October 2011 when the Urban Rail Platform issued in English, French and German a set of "fundamental requirements" which are being used as basic reference for the execution of the urban rail standardisation mandate. These fundamental re-quirements have been sent to the Commission in November 2011.On this basis, the Commission con-siders that interoperability for local, urban and suburban systems is ad-equately addressed in the voluntary field and does not need to be cov-ered by the proposed new Interop-erability Directive of the Fourth Rail-way Package, and that the scope of the new Safety Directive needs to be adapted to make it consistent with the ‘Interoperability Directive’.”

2. The mandate M/486

In order to perform the first phase requested by the mandate (Phase

A: Programming) in an efficient and timely manner, the ESOs coordinat-ed their activities at the level of the Joint Programming Committee Rail (JPC-Rail), the sector forum that in-cludes participation of professional organisations and federations at European level and whose principal aim is to develop strategies and industrial policies in coordination with the work of the ESO techni-cal committees. This forum serves in particular as a dialog platform for exchange with the UITP/UNIFE Urban Rail Platform and for coop-eration with the European Railway Agency (ERA). It is also keeping a close eye on the output of those Eu-ropean research and development programmes that may present an in-novative element for the Standardi-sation work. A working group called “Urban Rail Survey Group” – URSG – was created with experts mandated by the National Standardisation Bodies or by the URP. The URSG and its “Task Forces” met over two days every month in Brussels from December 2010 to February 2012.The URSG performed a gap analysis of CEN, CENELEC and ETSI as well as ISO and IEC standards already existing and under development, including the assessment of their revision and came to the conclusion that a total of 519 standards (EN or prEN etc.) have been reviewed, among which around 160 are not relevant and around 275 are di-rectly applicable to Tram/Light Rail and metro. After that, the URSG formulated the terms of reference – topics and priorities (high: start the standardisation works as soon as possible; medium: start within the next two years; low: start at the occasion of a revision of the standard) - for developing a coher-ent minimum set of standards for voluntary use in the field of urban rail. Furthermore, existing national legal technical rules applicable to the various categories of Urban Rail systems (Tram, Light Rail, Metro, Lo-cal Rail Systems) have been identi-fied and listed as far as there was an input provided by the knowledge of participating members.The identified Urban Rail needs for

standardisation are described in so-called “fiches of needs”. As a whole, 54 fiches have been produced:

� One of these fiches, defined at the “System” level, intends to provide generic hazard analysis on system level and assignment of possible safeguards and rec-ommendations for the applica-tion of the life-cycle process for Urban Rail.

� One fiche, proposed at the “Sub-system” Signalling level, intends, in order to support op-erations, to specify functional requirements for signalling and other safety systems, for Trams and Light Rail systems (non-met-ro) as well as for category IV of railway applications.

� All other 52 fiches are proposed at the “component” level:

� Rolling Stock (Mechanical) cov-ers 37 fiches addressing compo-nents including, but not limited to, brakes, wheelsets & bogies, elec-trical lighting, test for acceptance of Rolling Stock characteristics, air conditioning, under-run pro-tector and obstacle deflector for tram and Light Rail.... Three other fiches are shared with Guideway and Stations: on acoustics, on rules for calculating gauges and on similarities with bus.

� Apart from the three fiches shared with Rolling Stock (Mechanical), the Task Force Guideway and Stations produced 11 fiches fo-cusing on track standardisation (including one on acceptance of

Impressum:

German Standardisation Comittee for Track and Railway Vehicles Secretariat of Technical Comittees Railway Application CEN/TC 256 and IS0/TC 269Rüdiger Wendt Panoramaweg 1, 34131 KasselTel.: +49 561 93567-41, Telefax: +49 561 [email protected], www.fsf.din.de

»

Standardisation report 1/13 FSF

RTR 1/201354

FSF Standardisation report 1/13works for non-ballasted tracks), and the Traction Power Supply Task Force produced one fiche on electric traction overhead contact lines for trams, Light Rail and metros systems...

Each fiche was reviewed by the rel-evant task force and subsequently by the URG plenary. Then, a consul-tation of the two ‘Railway Applica-tions’ Technical Committees (CEN/TC 256 and CENELEC/TC 9X) took place in order particularly to assess the potential human resources available to carry on the work during the standardisation phase. Finally, the JPC-Rail gave a final blessing from the Railway Industry strategic perspective and fine-tuned the in-formation when missing: conclusion was that standardisation works could start on 38 topics between 2012 and 2015.The report of the phase A, taking in-to account decisions of the relevant ESOs’ Technical Committees and of JPC-R has been officially addressed on 9 October 2012 to the European Commission by the Directors Gener-als of CEN/CENELEC and ETSI, and the Commission transmitted this

report for information to Member States through the Rail Interopera-bility and Safety Committee (RISC). This document shall be used as a reference for the development of standards in the field of Urban Rail during the “Standardisation” Phase B of the mandate.Once accepted by the competent Commission services, the “Stand-ardisation Programme in the field of Urban Rail” shall be presented for opinion to the Committee on Standards and Technical Regula-tions (98/34 Committee) after con-sultation of the Rail Interoperability and Safety Committee (RISC). In the case of favourable opinions, the tasks included in the second phase of Mandate M/486 shall be carried out according to the programme and the timetables agreed in phase A.

3. Complementary actions

In addition to the works of the URSG, a « Spectrum User Group » set up by UITP developed with ETSI a « Systems Requirements Docu-ment » (SRDoc) on “Spectrum re-quirements for Urban Rail Systems” (Allocation of a Frequency Spectrum in the 5.9 GHz frequency band for

safety-related applications dedi-cated to Urban Rail Systems). The relevant approval process started mid-2012, still on-going early 2013.As an external input, the Urban Rail Platform also identified seven main priorities and cost drivers for Urban Rail, all based on the ‘Urban Rail fundamental requirements’; all for voluntary use; and based on a sys-tem view:

1. Approval & Acceptance – Cross acceptance – Generic hazard analysis2. Clear/ clarification of scope and

content of standards 3. Clarification of operational con-

ditions 4. Clear functional requirement

specifications5. Interfaces between subsystems

(e.g. Platform-vehicle interface); – Interdependencies based on

preferred performance values – Technical interface specifica-

tions6. Basic documentation for mainte-

nance, operation and safety7. Calculation principles, methods

and assumptions

4. Conclusion

Standardisation in the field of Ur-ban Rail intends to cover the whole bandwidth from tram systems up to highly integrated unattended metro systems as well as local railway systems with a range of operational characteristics. All these applica-tions have their specific particular needs based on operations princi-ples, which are mostly not present in the interoperability field. The stand-ards developed for Urban Rail using the “fundamental requirements” as basic reference will become broadly accepted as “state of the art” for vol-untary use. By encouraging the adop-tion of these standards in support of national legislation this should lead to expected benefits in terms of both cost and process (larger series, more suppliers and reduced time to market), which shall make urban rail more attractive for the customers.

Yves Amsler, Consultant and UITP Advisor/Coordinator of the Urban Rail Platform, Convenor of the Urban Rail Survey Group of CEN-CENELEC-ETSI.

Technical data: ISBN 978-3-7771-0421-8, format 170 x 240 mm, hardcover, 621 pagesPrice: € 68,- (incl. VAT, excl. postage)Contact: DVV Media Group GmbH l Eurailpress, Phone: +49/40/2 37 14-440, Fax +49/40/2 37 14-450, email: [email protected]

Find out more and order your copy on: www.eurailpress.de/tc

As a standard reference book for railway trackengineers and practitiners, “Track Compendium” clearly and compactly describes the physical properties of individual track components and their interrelationships.

This second edition contains several

additional sections on the following topics:

Equivalent conicity

Interaction of the vehicle with track geometry faults

Durability of wooden sleepers

Ballast bed cleaning and ballast properties

The author Bernhard Lichtberger has an experience of more than 20 years of research in the field of track behaviour and the optimum methods of track maintenance. “Track Compendium” is a practical aid for railway engineers and an essential reference book in their daily work.

Completely revised and extended version

Track System – Substructure – Maintenance – Economics

Briefly from Around the World

RTR 1/2013 55

Railway frost prevention – an essential factor for mobilityIn cold regions and during the winter period in the warmer areas of the northern hemisphere, railway traffic is often disrupted by ice and snow

Eltherm

resulting in train cancellations and delays. But how do you provide ice- and snow-free rails and switches without any major effort? Is it pos-

sible to avoid regular new invest-ments in maintenance-intensive, ineffective heating devices?Eltherm GmbH from Burbach, Ger-many has addressed these prob-lems by developing innovative solu-tions with the track heating system, El-Rail and the switch heating sys-tem, El-Point. These solutions do not operate on the old-fashioned principle of heating rails and switch-es but instead use the highly effi-cient eltherm systems, which pro-vide long term cost savings. The El-Rail system for rails (Fig. 1) carries six heating conductors, insu-lated by PTFE and embedded in a flat, flexible silicone jacket. The ex-tra large contact surface, combined with a thermally shielding GRP cover profile and individually suited mounting clips, allows for an opti-mum thermal contact with minimum thermal losses to the environment. Therefore, it is extremely energy ef-ficient compared to other systems with the same heating performance. In comparison to parallel resistance heating cables with the typical oval cross-section and smaller dimen-sions, the El-Rail cable reaches a higher rail temperature with prede-termined nominal power.The system is installed using stain-less steel clips, which are designed to be mounted quickly and easily with a special tool (Fig. 2). A maxi-mum heating circle length of up to 1,000 m also assists the installation as station entries and exits can be managed with a single supply point. In addition to this, life cycle costs are minimised thanks to the high quality, resistant material as well as optimum system connectivity. One of the most impressive instal-lations of the El-Rail heating strip was in 2010 in the city of Lausanne in France. The local Metro had to overcome a difference of 350 m in altitude on a distance of only 6 km – a task which brought the remote controlled passenger cars with rub-ber tires to their limits during winter times. The operating company was thrilled with the results of using eltherm technology. Network Rail, the British railway operators, cur-rently hold the largest market for eltherm rail and have switched their heating systems with thousands of meters already sold.Directly connected with the El-Rail‘s story of success is the eltherm switch heating system El-Point, which is defined especially by its saving potential (Fig. 3). The El-Point system combines up to two parallel resistance heating cables with a thermally shielding GRP cover profile and the individually

Fig.1: The rail heating system El-Rail by eltherm is quickly installed, saves energy and minimises maintenance efforts

Fig. 2: Thanks to its high energy efficiency, El-Rail can be managed with one single supply point when installed at station entry and exit

Fig. 3: Switch heating system El-Point in use

fitted stainless steel clips. In this way, significantly higher energy ef-ficiency can be reached in compari-son to commonly used conventional flat heating elements. This creates the potential performance boost in heating efficiency of up to 30 %, which results in enormous energy cost savings from the outset. More-over, El-Point provides saving poten-tial in warehousing and installation efforts. The heating strip can be cut off a roll and is therefore variable in length, making any warehousing of flat heating elements for different types of switches redundant. The assembly as well as the installation on site is made quick and simple by means of perfect system connectiv-ity, saving time and money. The high flexibility and robustness of the sys-tem under changing weather condi-tions often allows for significantly prolonged maintenance intervals.The two heating systems are com-pleted by the addition of an individu-ally designed, custom-fitted control and monitoring system. This nor-mally includes one or more switch cabinets on site for the operation of the local heating circles, each one equipped with an intelligent control unit. This heating control reacts to real-time measuring of dif-ferent parameters like temperature and wind speed supplied by one or more weather stations. These sta-tions also directly detect and report rain or snowfall. An additional con-nection of several stations or even rail sensors is possible at any time. Within the information circle, the switch cabinets are not only used as power distributors but they are also watching over the system dur-ing operation and are able to detect mistakes and react in advance. The innovative cable design, the use of high-quality components and the careful production make eltherm railway heating systems the first choice for providing distur-bance-free and safe railway traffic, even under the harshest condi-tions in the world. Railway opera-tors are therefore able to reduce or avoid cancellations, accidents and unforeseeable costs. Permanent area-wide and personnel intensive maintenance and control can be eliminated. Over the last few years, these benefits have convinced more and more Asian customers, too. In fact, eltherm founded the subsidiary eltherm Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd. in Sin-gapore exclusively for these custom-ers to ensure that the performance of trains on the Asian continent will be more reliable during future winter times.


RTR 1/201356

VEL-Wagon selected to be the Best Green Corridor ProjectIn December 2012 Trafikverket (the Swedish Traffic Administration) awarded VEL-Wagon the prize for the “Best Green Corridor project”. VEL-Wagon was chosen among 31 contestants. “VEL” stands for “versatile, efficient and longer wagon for European transport”, a project funded by the European Union with the principal aim of improving the efficiency of freight transport by developing a wagon with a long, uninterrupted loading area, especially for inter-modal transports. The advantages obtained from a

Award

– Less energy consumption (decreased rolling resistance, less deadweight)

– Less maintenance – Less noise (fewer axles with

increased axle load)� Better aerodynamics (fewer bo-

gies and fewer gaps between containers)

� Lower cost per transported unit load. That is also a prerequisite for higher market share for inter modal transport.

The 80 ft VEL wagon has an overall length of 25,940 mm (18,000 mm

between pivots) and a through-going loading height of 1,090 mm above the running surface. It can carry two 40’ containers (length together 24.4 m). For other containers and swap bodies see Fig. 2. The wagon is equipped with two bogies Y25 Ls-K, the wheel diameter being

Fig. 2: Dimensions (in mm) and loading scheme of the 80 ft VEL wagon

920 mm. The maximum axle load is 22.5 t. The dead weight of the VEL wagon is expected to be 22 t. The main obstacle for the introduc-tion is the limitation of the infra-structure when it comes to the load-ing gauge. The geometric overthrow in tight track curves (as R = 250 m) is some centimetres more than those of existing container-carrying vehicles. However, in most cases the loaded VEL can operate on lines suitable for the intermodal gauge code C 364 and higher. In general, the infrastructure gauge shall be GB or larger, which represents about the 90 % of the network. The potential market of VEL-Wagon embraces the whole European inter-modal market (container and swap body transport) and a part of the conventional railway freight mar-ket, the one dedicated to the light products. In the recent decades the transportation of light goods, in containers and in lorries has grown dramatically. VEL-Wagon project has investigated the markets of freight analysing many statistics sources, concluding that the trend is and

will be that the transportation of light materials, finished and semi-finished products will continue grow-ing. VEL-Wagon goes for this kind of “light” goods because it considers that this is the market in which the competition against the road makes more sense. It is a wagon that is adapted bet-ter to the trend of having lighter containers, more prone to be volu-metric loads than dense loads. VEL-Wagon also addresses the concept of having multiuse flat wagons to which it is possible to attach su-perstructures that make them able for different freight transport appli-cations. With the right attachment, these wagons can be transformed into other kinds of wagons e. g. a timber wagon, a tank wagon, a bulk wagon, a covered wagon for grouped goods, etc. for other kinds of freight transports.VEL-Wagon project partners are TU Berlin (Berlin University of Technol-ogy), KTH (Royal University of Tech-nology, Stockholm), University of Žilina (Slovakia) and Tatravagonka (Poprad, Slovakia).

Lucchini launched new book at InnoTrans The Italian Lucchini RS-Group has made use of InnoTrans to launch a new addition to its LRS-Techno range of specialist publications.After the topics of reliability and safety in railway products, railway noise, development and applica-tions for heavy haul service with wheels for freight cars and struc-tural reliability assessment of rail-way axles, in the fifth volume the authors broaden their focus on high-speed rail (HSR).Lucchini RS, being a producer of wheels and wheelsets, has ac-quired considerable expertise in producing new and innovative grades of materials for wheels and developing a well-organized control system.This point was made in LRS-Techno 3, which had as its main topic the application, experience and solutions for steel grades in heavy haul services worldwide. LRS-Techno 5 covers the same as-pects, but for high-speed rail this time. The contents are structured as in LRS-Techno 3. Special care has been taken over chapter 5:

“New applications and results”, which presents and analyses ser-vice feedback from applications in different countries. HSR ser-vices undoubtedly involve specific problems concerning the wheels and the behaviour of the different steel grades with regard to dam-age, specially RCF (Rolling Contact Fatigue) failures.Around 26,000 SUPERLOS® wheels are in service today, the majority for HSR. Since HSR trains cover very great distances in a short time, significant changes in the wheel’s behaviour during ser-vice can be detected at the same time. A summary of this feedback and the conclusions Lucchini has made so far are presented in this book.

Ghidini, Andrea; Diener, Markus; Gianni, Andrea; Schneider, Jürgen: SUPERLOS® Innovative steel by Lucchini RS for high-speed wheel application, Series LRS-TECHNO, vol. 5, 318 pages, ISBN: 978-88-90624-04-9

Fig. 1: Comparison of the proposed 80 ft VEL wagon and two conventional container transport wagons (60 ft and 2x40 ft resp.)

80 ft VEL wagon4 Axles

60 ft VEL wagon4 Axles

conventional container transport wagons6 Axles

simulation of an 80 ft VEL-Wagon (Fig. 1) for intermodal transports are:

� Better loading factor of trains (10% more TEU per train length)

� Fewer axles per length which im-plies:


RTR 1/2013 57

First Alister SIL2 in operationMore than 40 Alister electronic in-terlockings for marshalling yards by Funkwerk are already success-fully operating in many European rail-ways. Now, the first Alister SIL2 in-terlocking to be installed in Germany has commenced full operation – at the Hamburger Hochbahn AG (HOCH-BAHN), the second largest public transport company in Germany.In the first step, the control system of the Saarlandstrasse depot was separated from the existing relay interlocking and replaced by mod-ern Alister interlocking technology which fulfils current requirements for technically up-to-date and eco-nomical depot operations. In Sep-tember, after an implementation time of only 5 months, the interlock-ing for Saarlandstrasse depot went into operation, at first with basic functions. In the meantime, the in-stallation has been extended and is now successfully operating with its full range of functions. The inter-locking is equipped not only with an electronic interface to the adjacent relay interlocking, but also with a di-rect connection to the HOCHBAHN's

Funkwerk

Tognum to introduce Tier 3/ULELTognum, the specialist for propul-sion and power solutions, will intro-duce new MTU Series 4000 R54 lo-comotive engines to North America for the U.S. EPA Tier 3 and California Air Resources Board’s “Ultra Low Emission Locomotive” (ULEL) emis-sion standards. The 12- and 16-cyl-inder engines are rated at 2414 hp (1,800 kW) and 3218 hp (2,400 kW) respectively, and will meet the emission standards without exhaust gas aftertreatment. Typical appli-cations for this power range are switcher locomotives, road switcher locomotives and high speed trains. The engines will be available in 2013, and will be the first engines for single-engine locomotives with traction power in the range of 2000 to 3000 hp capable of meeting Cali-fornia ARB ULEL limits.“Locomotive manufacturers and railroad operators continue to face

MTU rail engines for North America

increasingly stringent emissions re-quirements and rising fuel costs,” said Dr. Ulrich Dohle, member of the Tognum Executive Board for Technology & Operations. “As the North American rail industry contin-ues to grow, we are committed to helping our rail customers in North America overcome these challenges and achieve their business goals.”Cooled exhaust gas recirculation will be used as a core technology inside the engine to reduce nitrogen oxide levels. The highly efficient, two-stage turbocharging system ensures that there is sufficient air available for efficient and low-soot combustion in all operating condi-tions, such as extreme temperature conditions, high elevation or in the event of high exhaust gas back pressure. The two-stage turbocharg-ing also allows throttle-response times comparable to traditional sin-

MTU 4000 R54 motor

Innovative smartcardby Siemens

The first Alister SIL2 electronic interlocking installed by Funkwerk in Germany now in full operation at HAMBURGER HOCHBAHN

gleengine switcher and road switch-er locomotives. Intake valve control based on the Miller cycle makes it possible to lower the nitrogen oxide levels and simultaneously reduces fuel consumption. MTU’s thirdgener-ation common-rail injection system, which provides a maximum injection

pressure of 2,200 bar, ensures low particulate emissions. The combi-nation of these technologies ena-bles the Series 4000 R54 to meet the Tier 3 and ULEL limits with no aftertreatment, while still providing industry-leading performance and efficiency.

At the Transport Ticketing Confer-ence in London, Siemens Mobility and Logistics has won the Master-Card Transport Ticketing Award 2013 in the category "Ticketing technology of the year" for develop-ing the dual-function smartcard. The fifth Transport Ticketing Conference & Expo took place in London from January 28-30, 2013. The confer-ence is Europe's largest event for transport companies, local authori-ties and sector representatives for passenger services, covering all aspects of ticketing. As part of this conference, the first winners of the MasterCard Transport Ticketing Awards were announced. Innovative inventions were honored in five cat-egories covering ticketing and fare management.For this year's award, Siemens put forward a dual-function smartcard which integrates different means of transport. The smartcard, in credit

Transportation Ticketing Award 2013 for innovative smartcard

Siemens

card format, can be used intermo-dally for different means of trans-port and interoperably for different transport companies and fare net-works as well as the associated service providers. Its dual function-ality also enables the smartcard to be used for “Check-in/Check-out” (CiCo) access control systems and the “Be-in/Be-out” (BiBo) principle. Unlike the CiCo principle, in which passengers actively scan their ac-cess pass with a terminal, the BiBo system offers maximum conveni-ence for users. The smartcard is automatically recorded on entering and leaving the vehicle as well as at intervals during the trip using a contactless monitoring system. The route taken and any changes of class are automatically logged. Only the most economical fare op-tion for the route actually taken will be charged.

operations control and monitoring system.This Alister electronic interlocking for depot control provides maximum operating flexibility. It can be operat-ed from a local workstation or from the HOCHBAHN's central opera-tions control and monitoring system which enables individual operation as well as automatic operation by means of train tracking. In addition, the interlocking can be operated by local route control panels for jour-neys to the adjacent siding tracks to the north of the depot.The new interlocking system for the Saarlandstrasse depot is based on Funkwerk IT's Alister interlock-ing platform. The consistent use of standard industrial components (e. g. programmable logic control-lers, fieldbus, Ethernet) and open interfaces in this platform result in a modular, network-compatible sys-tem architecture with significantly reduced life-cycle costs. This en-ables sustainable management of facilities and also increases safety in shunting areas which until now were operated manually.

RTR 1/201358

Dr.-Ing. Norbert Schiedeck, Vossloh AG, WerdohlProf. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Siefer, TU BrunswickDr. mont. Georg-Michael Vavrovsky, ÖBB Infrastruktur AG, ViennaNiko Warbanoff, DB International GmbH, BerlinProf. Dr. Ulrich Weidmann, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), ZurichIng. Rainer Wenty, Plasser & Theurer, ViennaDipl.-Ing. Henri Werdel, Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Luxembourgeois (CFL), L-Luxembourg Dipl.-Ing. Ulrich Wiescholek, Eisenbahn-CERT (EBC), BonnDr. Dieter Wilhelm, Knorr-Bremse AG, Munich

Rail Technology Review (RTR) is published quarterly in March, May, September and November

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Editor-in-Chief:Prof. Dr.-Ing. Eberhard Jänsch Frankfurter Strasse 36, D-61137 Schöneck Tel.: +49 6187 4523, [email protected]

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Based on a survey conducted in the 55 largest rail markets worldwide, the UNIFE World Rail Market Study provides market volumes and growth predictions from 2012 to 2017. Based on the testimony of UNIFE members and rail experts from all around the globe, the WRMS gives an account of short-term and long-term growth for all rail product segments and regions.

Strategic conclusions are elaborated for each product segment and region based on the order intake of UNIFE members, a sophisticated forecasting model and the expertise of selected high- level decision-makers in the most important rail markets in the world. For the fi rst time the UNIFE World Rail Market Study will be available as personalised PDF, and by individual pro-duct segment.

World Rail Market Study 2012A study commissioned by UNIFE – The European Rail Industry

Conducted by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants

It is the largest study

of its kind and

a major reference

for the rail community.

www.eurailpress.de l www.railwaygazette.com

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Fourth edition now available!

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in times of stiff competition. Uneconomical sectors should be outsour-

ced to those firms that can guarantee greater competence and efficiency.

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