IRJ

March 2023 |  Volume 63 Issue 3

www.railjournal.com | @railjournal

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New horizons
Alstom CEO plans global growth
European masterplan
Associations offer new vision for
continental high-speed network
No cars go
Singapore’s recipe for
public transport growth

Rail’s revival in Cambodia = Stuttgart 21 fatally flawed?

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Contact us
Editorial offices
Contents
March 2023 Volume 63 issue 3

Post 46 Killigrew Street News

Falmouth 4 This month
Cornwall, TR11 3PP, UK 6 News headlines
Tel +44 1326 313945
12 Transit news
Web www.railjournal.com
14 Financial news
Editor-in-Chief
16 News analysis - Stuttgart 21

19
Kevin Smith
ks@railjournal.co.uk
Consulting Editor/
Associate Publisher
David Briginshaw
db@railjournal.co.uk Interview
Associate Editor 19 Alstom CEO outlines plans for global growth
Robert Preston Henri Poupart-Lafarge talks to IRJ
rpreston@railjournal.co.uk
News Editor
David Burroughs

28
dburroughs@railjournal.co.uk
News Reporter East Asia
Simon Artymiuk
23 Singapore charts a path to a 45-minute city
sartymiuk@railjournal.co.uk
LTA outlines work to boost public transport utilisation
Production Manager
Sue Morant 28 Cambodia’s rail revival continues
sm@railjournal.co.uk Royal Railway transforms the country’s metre-gauge network

Advertising sales office High-speed

Post 1809 Capitol Avenue,

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Omaha, NE 68102
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Business development manager
Jerome Marullo jmarullo@sbpub.com
Tel +1 732 887 5562

Print magazine subscriptions hotline Climate resiliance

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41 Full contact list by Alstom, is undergoing
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magazine subscriptions, assistance & address changes,
please call +1 402 346-4740, Fax +1 847 291-4816,
41 Advertisers index Czech Republic. Alstom
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41 Fresh faces Poupart-Lafarge reveals
Journal, Simmons-Boardman
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42 The last word his plans for 2023 in our New horizons
Alstom CEO plans global growth
Lincolnshire, IL, 60069-0239, exclusive interview (p19). European masterplan
Associations offer new vision for
No cars go
Singapore’s recipe for

Photo: Alstom
continental high-speed network public transport growth

USA Rail’s revival in Cambodia = Stuttgart 21 fatally flawed?

IRJ March 2023 3

 This month | Kevin Smith

Are we on the verge of a high-

Railways and Infrastructure Japan missed out on the
Companies (CER), AllRail and Indonesian project but is helping

speed rail construction boom?

Europe’s Rail, which offers a India to build its first high-
blueprint for a 49,400km speed line between Mumbai
European high-speed network and Ahmadabad, although this

T HE Swedish government’s
decision to shelve the
country’s high-speed rail
project in December ended, at
least for now, a near decade-
long debate over the scheme.
Sweden was split over whether
constructing a new 320km/h
Y-shaped network between
Stockholm, Gothenburg and
Malmö was a good idea. On
announcing the project in 2014,
the government of the time
said it would create jobs and
improve transport connections
in the north of the country.
Swedish national operator SJ
also went on a media charm
and communicate the concept
of modal shift. The project is
also not helped by its ludicrously
high cost.
Opponents have argued that
this money would be better
spent on upgrading the existing
network. And they have a
point. However, it should not
be an either or. Even in a time
of fiscal constraints, the climate
emergency justifies greater
spending on infrastructure that
will bring down emissions
from transport, which remain
stubbornly static. Supporters
also point out that mixing up
long-term infrastructure
that will help to increase high-
speed rail’s market share to 54%
by 2070 (p32).
The authors’ argument centres
on the environmental benefits
of shifting people and goods
onto rail. This is reinforced by the
early results of a German plan
to convert aviation passengers
to rail post-Covid-19 (p7).
Passengers using DB’s ICE
Sprinter service increased by 45%
in 2022 compared with 2019,
while domestic aviation remains
at 56% of pre-pandemic levels.
Delivery of the projects will
ultimately be down to member
states. However, the study’s
has run into some difficulties.
Construction of several projects
is underway in Turkey, where a
30-year transport plan targets
the construction of a 28,590km
of lines by 2053. Saudi Arabia
also hopes to extend its Mecca -
Medina high-speed line to Riyadh.
One of the most exciting
current projects is in Egypt,
where work is underway on a
new 2000km network. This will
draw a lot of interest among
visitors to Marrakech for this
month’s UIC World Congress
on High-Speed Rail. Delegates
will also have the opportunity
to see first-hand Morocco’s Rabat

offensive, talking up shorter
journey times and improved
connectivity, the boost to
Sweden’s global competitiveness,
and the project’s benefit to the
environment.
However, concerns centred
on the SKr 295bn ($US 28.23bn)
cost of the project, which had
been watered down in 2021 from
the original proposal. Justifying
its decision to cancel the project,
the government says that it
favours upgrading existing rail
infrastructure, where it says
“maintenance has been lagging
for many years,” and that it
would invest in improving
roads and installing e-charging
points for cars.
It is of course easy for a rail
industry publication to slam
this decision. The industry after
all has a vested interest in the
construction of these mega
projects. Yet it does seem rather
short-sighted, particularly on
environmental grounds. It is
also contrary to the wider
global trend of more and more
governments backing high-
speed rail construction.
Britain’s HS2 project to build
a new high-speed line between
London, Birmingham and
Manchester has been equally
controversial and divisive,
mirroring the debate in Sweden.
The government remains
committed to the project. Yet
the failure to adequately
communicate its benefits of
improved network capacity in
the early stages has left HS2 on
the back foot. Even now the
government struggles to grasp
“
Even in a time of fiscal constraints, the
climate emergency justifies greater
spending on infrastructure.
investment with everyday
maintenance and renewals is a
folly, arguing that these costs
are spread over many years
and will in the long term offer
a return on investment that far
outweighs the upfront cost.
This did not stop the British
government from making this
argument to justify scrapping
the eastern leg of HS2 to Leeds
in 2021, however.
Elsewhere in Europe, Spain
continues to double-down on
high-speed rail investment
while the French are once again
entertaining the idea of new
line construction. New projects
are taking shape in the Czech
Republic and in Poland, where
Solidarity Transport Hub (CPK)
is overseeing the continent’s
most ambitious project. It plans
to build a 2000km network of
12 high-speed lines centred on
a new airport being built
between Warsaw and Lodz. It
is hoped that this project will
connect with the Rail Baltica
programme to connect Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania to the
standard-gauge network,
construction of which is
underway, as well as a
proposed line to Ukraine.
These projects are all included
in a report compiled by the
Community of European
- Casablanca high-speed line
and hear about the planned
extension to Marrakech.
“I don’t know any country
that started building a high-
speed railway and then didn’t
continue,” Mr Pär Helgesson,
then high-speed project
authors are calling for the manager at SJ, said back in
development of a High-Speed 2017. This statement has never
Masterplan for Europe that will felt truer. While parked for now,
guide member states when the debate over whether to build
building new infrastructure. high-speed rail in Sweden is
There is also a desire for not quite finished yet.
countries to align their national
infrastructure planning so new
high-speed rail construction
does not stop at the border, as
Europe’s Rail’s outgoing
executive director, Mr Carlo ks@railjournal.co.uk
Borghini, points out (p42).
Elsewhere, high-speed rail is
increasingly becoming the
backbone of transport
infrastructure planning in both
developed and developing
countries. China’s commitment
continues unabated, with the
national network set to reach
44,500km this year. China will
also complete a project to build
Indonesia’s first high-speed
line between Jakarta and
Bandung in June. This is its
most high-profile international
project to date and it surely
hopes to complete
more as part of the
Belt and Road
Initiative. Building
on the project to
Laos to other
countries in
southeast Asia is
an obvious
target (p28).

4
 News | headlines
Transnet plans 35% network cut to focus on core traffic
T RANSNET CEO, Ms
Portia Derby, says that
South Africa’s state-owned
freight operator needs to
reduce the size of its 20,000km
network by at least 35% in
order to focus on more
profitable traffic.
“At this point we can’t justify
operating something which
actually causes us to make a
loss and so that’s why there’s
this revision of certain flows
across the network,” Derby
told Bloomberg.
“We can operate more
effectively with a slightly smaller
network,” says Transnet chief
strategy and planning officer,
Mr Andrew Shaw.
“It still serves the economic
interest of the country and it still
allows additional operators,”
he says. The final decision for
closing routes or offering them
to another operator would rest
with the government.
As it looks to focus on more
profitable flows of coal and ore,
Transnet has announced its
intention to offer the private
sector a 20-year lease to
EC announces 10 cross-border passenger rail pilot projects
T HE European Commission
(EC) has published a list of
10 pilot projects to introduce
new cross-border passenger
services or improve existing
connections.
In order of planned starting
date, they are:
• Hungary: new services to
Austria and western Romania
• Scandinavia: new SJ
Stockholm - Copenhagen -
Berlin overnight service and
Hamburg - Gothenburg
(possibly Oslo) day train in
cooperation with Danish State
Railways (DSB) and German
Rail (DB); enhanced Snälltaget
Stockholm - Copenhagen -
Berlin overnight service; new
Czech Railways (CD) Prague -
6 IRJ March 2023
operate the Container Corridor
between Johannesburg and
Durban.
Transnet says the operating
lease will help provide the
investment needed for the
rehabilitation, operation, and
maintenance of infrastructure
and rolling stock.
In 2022 Transnet granted
paths in the Cape Corridor
from Springfontein to East
London to private freight
operator Traxtion Sheltam on
a conditional basis.
Transnet operations have
been hampered by a shortage
of locomotive parts and theft
of catenary cable, and reducing
the size of its operations
would make more locomotives
available to move export coal
on the North Corridor serving
the port of Richards Bay.
Traffic on this route fell to a
three-decade low in 2022 and
deliveries have slowed further
since the start of this year,
according to Bloomberg.
The North, Northeast and
Cape corridors account for
50% of Transnet revenue, but
Berlin - Copenhagen service in
cooperation with DB and DSB;
and new Leipzig - Berlin -
Copenhagen - Stockholm
FlixTrain service
• Midnight Trains: new Paris -
Milan - Venice overnight service
• FlixTrain: new Munich -
Zürich day train
• Westbahn: extension of
Munich - Vienna day trains to
Budapest
• Netherlands Railways (NS):
expansion of Amsterdam -
London Eurostar service
• European Sleeper: new
Amsterdam - Barcelona
overnight service
• Italian State Railways (FS)
and DB: new Rome - Munich
and Milan - Munich services
capacity has been restricted by
the lack of spare parts for the
class 22E electric locomotives
supplied by CRRC E-Loco for
these routes.
Unable to reach agreement
with the supplier, Transnet
has issued an open tender for
spare parts, as well as for the
repair of other locomotives
supplied by Wabtec, Mitsui
and Alstom.
To repay debt, fund capital
investment and meet operational
requirements as it rolls out its
strategy, Transnet has issued a
$US 1bn five-year bond at a
coupon of 8.25%, its first
international bond issue in
over 10 years and 2.9 times
oversubscribed.
Raising the new debt “buys
us five years of peace and
quiet,” Derby says. “It doesn’t
take away from the fact that
the financing pressures, the
need to generate revenue from
our operations and hence the
thing of stopping loss-making
flows is absolutely crucial for
us to start putting to bed some
of our old debt.”
Photo: Shutterstock/Peter Titmuss
• Ilsa: new Lisbon - A Coruña
and Lisbon - Madrid services,
and
• Catalunya Government
Railways (FGC): new services
connecting Catalonia and the
south of France.
“While demand for green
mobility is growing, we need
the rail market to respond
much better and much faster,
especially for long and cross-
border journeys,” says
European commissioner for
transport, Ms Adina Vălean.
“This is why the EC now wants
to help rail companies create
new international train
connections - by day and by night -
by breaking down the many
barriers to cross-border rail.”
Turkish and
Syrian railways
respond to
earthquakes
T URKEY and Syria’s
railways were badly
affected by February 6’s
7.8-magnitude earthquake, which
had caused a death toll of
more than 41,000 as IRJ went
to press, shortly after another
magnitude 6.4 quake hit the same
area on February 20, causing
further damage and distress.
The northwest of Syria was
worst affected by the February 6
earthquake, and all rail traffic
was reported to be suspended
by the Transport Ministry,
though detail was limited.
In Turkey, the central-southern
part of the country was worst
hit, with a total of 1275km of
railway infrastructure seriously
affected in the Kahramanmaraş
region, including damage to
446 bridges, 6161 culverts and
175 tunnels. In the Sekeroba
districts track was displaced
by 2-3m and left twisted while
sections of embankment gave
way.
Other routes badly affected
were Toprakkale - Narlı, Narlı -
Malatya and Narlı - Gaziantepk.
A total of 10 traction
substations were put out of
action. Six trains stabled at
Gaziantep were derailed and
on a mountainous section near
Fevzipasa, boulders fell onto
the track and derailed trains
though fortunately there were
no deaths or injuries.
Turkish State Railways (TCDD)
reports that trains carrying
aid, construction equipment,
electricity generators and
shelters were sent from Kocaeli
and Afyonkarahisar to the quake
zone. On February 7, a
20-wagon “Hope Train” set
out from Afyonkarahisar to
Adana, providing transport
and shelter for victims as well
as equipment to support
excavation and relief efforts.
Meanwhile, station waiting
rooms and coaches at Adana,
Mersin, Osmaniye, İskenderun,
Diyarbakır, Elazığ and Malatya
were made available to house
displaced residents. Accommodation
was provided for 3400 people,
with three meals a day
provided by the military.
 In brief

Renfe president resigns over German domestic Australia

Infrastructure manager
metre-gauge train gauging error air passengers Australian Rail Track
switching to rail Corporation (ARTC) has

T HE president of Spanish
national operator Renfe,
Mr Isaías Táboas, has resigned
secretary of state at the
transport ministry (Mitma).
Táboas will be succeeded by A German plan to attract
domestic air passengers
begun construction of the
Inland Rail project in Victoria,
meaning work is now
following delays to the Mr Raül Blanco, formerly to rail is proving successful, underway in two of the three
production of 31 new trains for secretary general for industry with passenger numbers on states through which the new
Renfe’s 1000mm-gauge and SMEs at the Ministry of rail services growing at a 1700km Melbourne - Brisbane
network in Asturias and Industry, Tourism and Trade. faster rate than comparative freight railway will pass.
Cantabria. Mr David Lucas, secretary air services.
Delivery of the first train is general for housing at Mitma, The German Aviation The Baltics
expected to be three years late has replaced Pardo de Vera. Association (BDL) and German The transport ministers of
after manufacturer CAF informed Under an action plan Rail (DB) launched a joint Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
Renfe that the infrastructure intended to resolve the issue, action plan in April 2021 to have agreed to study the
the trains would operate on did tenders will be called to strengthen integration between introduction of a broad-gauge
not comply with the published refurbish the existing fleet. air and rail. passenger service linking their
specifications, notably for Free travel on Renfe suburban In the first half of 2023, three capitals ahead of the
clearances in tunnels. services in Asturias and domestic air traffic is expected opening of the standard-gauge
Renfe is reported to have Cantabria, which was due to to reach around 56% of 2019 Rail Baltica high-speed line.
specified gauging standards finish on December 31, will levels. Although air travel is
for new infrastructure in its also continue until the arrival increasing after the Covid-19 Belgium
tender, rather than requiring of the new trains in 2026. pandemic, DB says there is Infrastructure manager
the new trains to fit within Sánchez has also announced evidence of a further shift of Infrabel has announced a
tunnels. CAF says the error that another seven trains will domestic short-haul traffic to project to electrify and track-
was detected in the early be added to the original €258m rail. In particular, the use of double a section of the 18km
phases of the design process order. The final design of the DB’s ICE Sprinter services is L11 freight line, a move which
and that no manufacturing new trains is expected to be increasing, with passenger will double rail capacity and
costs were incurred. ready this summer, enabling numbers 45% higher in 2022 eliminate a bottleneck on a key
Spain’s minister of transport, CAF to start production by the compared with 2019. route to the Port of Antwerp.
mobility and the urban start of 2024. Expanded feeder services
agenda, Ms Raquel Sánchez, “Not a single euro of public and offers such as Lufthansa Canada
announced on February 20 that money has been wasted and Express Rail have contributed Via Rail Canada has issued a
she had accepted Táboas’ no irreversible situation has significantly to the success of formal RFI for a supplier to
resignation, together with that arisen because no train has the action plan. In 2021, design, manufacture, test, deliver
of Ms Isabel Pardo de Vera, been built,” Sánchez says. demand for the joint feeder and commission new coaches
service offered by DB and and locomotives to replace its
Lufthansa to Frankfurt Airport ageing long-distance train
matched 2019 levels by fleet. The coaches will include
October, and in 2022 demand sleeping, dining and baggage
increased by another 25%. cars, and will be acquired,
The Lufthansa Express Rail along with the locomotives,
service, which enables through an open competitive
Lufthansa passengers to book procurement process.
a journey including train
travel to and from Frankfurt China
Airport on a DB ICE service The 277km Fuzhou - Xiamen -
with a single ticket, now has Zhangzhou high-speed line,
24 destinations in Germany, which is China’s first cross-sea
and the number of services has high-speed railway, reached
almost doubled from 135 to an important milestone on
240 trains a day. February 4 when it passed
Since Münster was included static acceptance tests. The
in the Lufthansa Express Rail 350km/h line is expected to
network and the service to open later this year.
Frankfurt Airport was further
Stadler to develop battery train for US market: Stadler has
improved with more ICE stops International
and hourly trains, demand has Czech regulator Transport
signed a contract with Utah State University (USU) and its
increased by 27%. Infrastructure Access
Aspire Engineering Research Centre to develop a two-car
DB’s Sprinter network has Authority has granted Leo
battery-powered EMU for the US market. Extensive research
also grown to 11 lines. New Express permission to
and development work is required to adapt the train, which
direct connections to Frankfurt establish new international
will be based on the manufacturer’s Flirt Akku design, to US
Airport were introduced with services, including between
infrastructure and national regulations, according to the
the December timetable Prague and Bratislava in
manufacturer, with tests planned at its Salt Lake City plant.
change, increasing the number Slovakia, and increase service
Stadler will concentrate on the design and production of a
of seats available to the airport frequency on several existing
prototype train, while Aspire will focus on the development of
by up to 60% this year routes at the start of the
trackside charging infrastructure.
compared with 2022.

IRJ March 2023 7

 News | headlines
Norfolk Southern Ohio derailment remains under investigation
T HE US National
Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB) has launched an
investigation after 50 wagons
of a Norfolk Southern (NS)
train carrying vinyl chloride
and other freight derailed in
East Palestine, Ohio, at around
20.54 on February 3, causing a
massive fire that forced the
evacuation of a 7.7km² area.
The train was operating from
Madison, Illinois, to Conway
Yard near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
No injuries to NS personnel,
residents or first responders were
reported, and full service was
restored by NS on February 7.
France aims to introduce
national ticket by 2025
F
RENCH transport
minister, Mr Clément
Beaune, led a competition
held on February 7-8 to select
parties to develop a concept
for a national public transport
ticket, which he hopes could
be introduced across France
by 2025.
There were more than 70
responses to the request to
join the hackathon to create the
“transport ticket of tomorrow,”
with 10 finalists whittled
down to two winners: France
Moov’ and Carte LEM.
The French Transport
Innovation Agency (AIT) will
now study deployment of
these solutions and trials
8 IRJ March 2023
NS says 20 of the wagons in
the train were carrying
hazardous materials. NTSB
says 11 pressure tank cars
carrying hazardous materials
derailed, five of which were
carrying vinyl chloride.
A mechanical problem with
a wagon axle was the cause of
the derailment. NTSB member,
Mr Michael Graham, said the
train crew received a detector
alert about the defect “shortly
before the derailment.” He said
investigators have identified
the exact “point of derailment,”
but did not disclose the location.
IRJ sister publication Railway
could start in several regions
by the end of this year.
Beaune is hopeful that the
project can be completed
within the next two years.
Beaune noted the media
attention that Germany’s €49
ticket has received, describing
the introduction of a single
public transport ticket that
simplifies the lives of users as
the “real revolution.”
“The single ticket makes it
easier and we know that the
easier public transport is to use,
the more it is used,” Beaune
says. “You also facilitate
intermodality, the use of
several means of transport
during a single trip.”
Photo: NTSB
Age has learned that the
derailment was probably due
to a combination of factors.
The train passed a lineside
hotbox detector that reported
no defects. Shortly after, a
wheel bearing started to
overheat, which caused an axle
to severely overheat.
This resulted in an axle
failure a few moments after the
train had passed a second
hotbox detector that triggered
the alert. The driver
immediately applied the
brakes, but the axle had
already failed, and the train
derailed.
Deutschland Ticket to launch on May 1
G ERMANY’s Deutschland
Ticket will be valid for
travel from May 1 after federal
and state transport ministers
agreed further key issues for
the introduction of the €49
monthly public transport ticket.
Under the draft law approved
by the federal cabinet on
February 1, sales will commence
on April 3 for the ticket, which
will be available on a subscription
basis. It will be valid on all
public transport excluding long-
distance trains and coaches.
Ministers agreed that the
ticket should be available to
employees as part of their
benefits. An employer subsidy
of 25% is envisaged with these
tickets subject to a 5% discount
on the sale price.
Federal minister for
“As a result of the
derailment, 38 cars derailed
and a fire ensued that
damaged an additional 12
cars,” NTSB says. “Surveillance
video from a residence showed
what appears to be a wheel
bearing in the final stage of
overheat failure moments
before the derailment.” The
wheelset from the wagon has
been secured for metallurgical
examination, while the
suspected overheated wheel
bearing will be examined at the
NTSB Materials Laboratory in
Washington, DC.
The vinyl chloride tank car
top fittings, including the relief
valves, have been removed and
secured for examination by
NTSB investigators. They will
then be tested in Texas under
the direction of the NTSB.
NTSB has obtained
locomotive event recorder
data, forward and inward-
facing image recording data
and wayside defect detector
data. A preliminary report was
expected to be published by
the end of February.
NS said it was “continuing
to work with local, state and
federal leaders and the
community affected by the
derailment.” It has set up a
Family Assistance Centre to
support those directly affected
and a $US 1m charitable fund
to support the community.
transport, Dr Volker Wissing,
says the €49 ticket is “the
biggest reform of the public
transport system in the history
of our country.”
He urged the swift start of
the legislative process to meet
the proposed timetable for
enacting the draft law, which
must be approved by the German
parliament, the Bundesrat
representing the states, and the
European Commission.
The federal government will
provide the states with €1.5bn
per year up to 2025 to introduce
the ticket. The states will also
contribute €1.5bn annually.
The Deustchland Ticket is
the long-term successor to the
9-euro ticket, which was
introduced with great success
for three months last summer.

UZ and LTG Cargo receive
European Railway Awards
M ORE than 400 people
from across the European
railway industry gathered in
Brussels on January 31 for the
16th European Railway Award
hosted by the Community of
European Railways and
Infrastructure Companies
(CER) and the European Rail
Industry Association (Unife).
Ukrainian Railways (UZ)
was the recipient of the “Rail
Champion” award, the judges
recognising the railway’s
remarkable resilience and
continuation of services in
times of war and unimaginable
hardship.
The award was presented to
UZ board member, Mr
Oleksandr Petrovskyi. In a
stirring speech, he reflected on
the hardship endured in the
342 days since war broke out,
which has left 327 railway
workers dead and has led to
the evacuation of more than 4
million people, including 1
million children, by rail. He
said that despite continued
Russian aggression, UZ has
continued to keep vital aid and
supplies flowing, as well as the
agricultural exports that are a
key component of the economy.
Petrovskyi vowed to
continue working to draw UZ
and Ukraine closer to Europe
and the European “railway
family.” His speech was met
with a standing ovation. “It’s
an honour for the Ukrainian
railway workers who keep
TGV M begins tests at Velim: The first Alstom TGV M high-speed train for French National
Railways (SNCF) has begun a six-month testing programme at Velim in the Czech Republic. One
power car is also being tested in a climatic chamber at the Rail Tec Arsenal facility in Vienna,
Austria, at temperatures ranging from -20°C to +40°C.
IRJ March 2023 9
doing their job on a daily basis
despite constant shelling and
infrastructure damage,” he said.
“The war is no excuse for us
not to keep enhancing our
service quality and to find new
Euro integration routes. More
railway connections with
Poland and Romania in recent
months are vivid proof of that.
I hereby invite all the railways
in Europe and beyond to help
Ukraine speed up the victory,
to work with us on establishing
more connections.”
Rail Trailblazer
This year’s “Rail Trailblazer
Award” recognised efforts to
increase female representation
in rail, which is a priority issue
for the sector given that only
20% of the workforce is female.
Ms Eglė Šimė, CEO of LTG
Cargo, was selected for her
focus on empowering women
while ably steering her company
through difficult times.
According to Šimė, a key
element in her efforts to
improve diversity at LTG
Cargo has been the
introduction of a mentorship
programme and a Women in
Railway network. She said it
was essential that female
employees are given the
confidence to speak up, which
will result in positive
contributions and help more
women to progress further
within the industry.
DB outlines high-
performance
network strategy
G ERMAN Rail (DB) has
developed a preliminary
renewal plan, which identifies
40 highly-congested sections
of the national railway which
are to be upgraded to create
a high-performance network.
These sections in need of
renewal in the short, medium or
long term have been prioritised
in consultation with the
German rail sector. DB will
discuss its findings with the
federal government which
will make the final decision
on the plans.
Under its high-capacity
network strategy, DB is
planning to bundle maintenance
work to reduce the time
routes are taken out of service.
The strategy intends to only
close a line once so that it
will not require additional
maintenance for several years.
“We want to upgrade the
highly-congested sections of
our rail network to a high-
performance network by
2030,” says DB infrastructure
director, Mr Berthold Huber.
“The general refurbishment
of the Riedbahn between
Frankfurt and Mannheim will
begin in the summer of 2024,
followed a year later by the
Hamburg - Berlin and
Emmerich - Oberhausen
sections. After that, the federal
government will decide how
and where to continue.”
In brief
December 2024 timetable change.
• Swedish operator SJ will
extend its daily Stockholm -
Hamburg Euronight service to
Berlin from March 31 to
September 30.
• French National Railways
passenger subsidiary SNCF
Voyageurs and Swiss Federal
Railways (SBB) have renewed
their cooperation under the
Lyria brand until 2027. Lyria is
74% owned by SNCF and 26%
by SBB and operates high-
speed services between Paris
Gare de Lyon and Basel,
Zürich, Geneva and Lausanne,
as well as on the Geneva -
Marseille route in summer.
• German Rail (DB) and
Polish State Railways (PKP)
have signed agreements to
improve cross-border passenger
services between their
countries, as well as reaffirming
support for Ukraine. DB and
PKP aim to increase the Berlin -
Frankfurt (Oder) - Kraków -
Przemyśl service to two trains
in each direction per day.
Berlin - Poznan - Warszawa
services will be every two
hours, with six trains a day
from June 2023. The Angermünde,
Germany - Polish border line
is being upgraded to reduce
journey times.
Japan
East Japan Railway (JR East)
has established the JR East
Private Reit Investment
Corporation as it seeks to
expand its property asset
ownership and management
model. JR East says it has
achieved its initial Yen 100bn
($US 762m) asset ownership
target for its entire property
fund business and is now
seeking to reach Yen 300bn of
assets under management by
the end of fiscal year 2025.
Namibia
China Gezhouba Group
Corporation (CGGC) has
completed a project to restore
the 107.5km Walvis Bay -
Arandis route. The $N 1.029bn
($US 67.5m) project has
received 56% of the total
funding from the Namibian
government and 44% through
a loan from the African
Development Bank. Line
speed was increased from
40km/h to 80km/h. CGGC
began work in November
 News | headlines
Indian government allocates $US 32.9bn for IR capital outlay
T HE government has
allocated Indian Railways
(IR) a record sum of Rs 2.4
trillion ($US 32.9bn) for capital
outlay in the 2023-24 financial
year. This includes Rs 375bn
for new rolling stock and fleet
modernisation, up from Rs 79bn
the year before.
An allocation of Rs 401bn
has been earmarked for the
National High Speed Rail
Corporation (NHSRC), overseeing
the project to build a high-speed
line from Mumbai to Ahmedabad.
Of this, Rs 195bn will be in
the form of budgetary support,
while an additional Rs 205bn
will be raised through extra-
budgetary resources.
Provision has been made in
the budget for the manufacture
of 1000 additional and smaller
eight-car Vande Bharat EMUs,
25 hydrogen-powered trains
State aid for wagonload freight must not distort competition, says Erfa
T HE European Rail Freight
Association (Erfa) says that
state aid for single wagonload
freight traffic must focus on
last-mile services and not distort
competition with other services.
Discussions continue at
national and European level on
the development of funding
mechanisms to support
wagonload traffic, which has
been loss-making for many years.
The European Commission
(EC) is currently revising the
2008 Guidelines on State Aid
for Railway Undertakings, and
expects to adopt the revised
guidelines at the end of 2023.
Areas under consideration
include avoiding cross-subsidy
10 IRJ March 2023
Track renewal is needed to ensure that Vande Bharat
trains can operate at their potential maximum speed
of 160km/h. Photo: Shutterstock/PradeepGaurs
and 150 air-conditioned EMUs
for mainline duties, to be
known as the Vande Metro.
A total of 3000 electric
locomotives will be built at IR
workshops in Dahod and
Varanasi, and 55,000 newly
designed wagons will be
procured under a public-
private partnership (PPP).
Infrastructure spending
includes an allocation of Rs 318bn
for new line projects, Rs 307bn
for track doubling and Rs 173bn
for track renewals. Rs 274bn
has been earmarked for the
Eastern and Western Dedicated
Freight Corridor projects.
IR is expected to generate
more revenue internally.
Projections have been set at Rs
2650bn against the Rs 2420bn
in the revised estimates for
2022-23.
The budgeted increase in
between commercial and PSO
activities. The EC is also
assessing the need for new
rules for freight in particular.
Erfa says that financial
support for wagonload can
play an important role in
achieving modal shift targets,
but that direct grants to
operators could potentially
distort competition.
It is “essential” that the
operator receiving aid for
wagonload - “which mostly
will be the national incumbent”
- must be separated
organisationally and financially
from other freight services.
Competition between
incumbents and new entrants
expenditure is almost 10%
higher that 2022-23, but there
is concern at the slow pace of
revenue generation within IR.
“In the last nine years, rail
revenues have increased a
mere 1.6 times, while a nine-
fold increase in capital
expenditure has been
witnessed,” says former IR
official, Mr S K Luthra.
Surprise has also been
expressed at the 2023-24
allocation for track renewals,
only 12% up on the year before
despite the need to ensure that
Vande Bharat trains can
operate at their potential
maximum speed of 160km/h.
“After adjustments for
inflation, the hike would
actually work out to be a
negligible increase,” says
former Railway Board
member, Mr Subodh Jain.
in the trainload market could
otherwise be distorted.
The association also believes
that direct aid to specific
operators should be avoided.
The focus should be on
supporting the cost of last-mile
services, which should be
offered on a non-discriminatory
basis to all market players.
Erfa says that any future
PSOs for wagonload should be
“tendered transparently on a
regular basis in order to assure
maximum efficiency and
neutrality.” Financial aid for
wagonload should not be
allowed where it distorts
competition with other services
that are viable without support,
Supply of coaches
for private operators
to increase
T HE members of the
Alliance of Passenger Rail
New Entrants (AllRail) and
rolling stock leasing company
members of the Association of
European Rail Rolling Stock
Lessors (AERRL) have pledged
to expand the number of new
or refurbished passenger
coaches available to private
operators in Europe.
The low availability of
suitable conventional and high-
speed rolling stock is one of the
obstacles facing private operators
trying to introduce new open-
access passenger services.
AERRL members say they
are ready to fund and put on
the market the required volume
of new and second-hand rolling
stock to allow operators to expand
or introduce services. In return,
AllRail members have pledged
to use unused or under-used
long-distance rolling stock in the
markets where they are active.
The locomotive leasing
market, mainly for freight
operators, expanded from 25%
of new locomotives delivered
in the European Union (EU),
Norway and Switzerland in
2011-15 to 40% by 2020, but
the availability of passenger
coaches is very limited.
“It is important that ... there
is an open and vibrant market
for second-hand rolling stock,”
says AllRail president Mr
Erich Forster.
such as trainload or long-
distance conventional freight.
Erfa says that “an artificial
transfer” of trainload traffic
back to subsidised wagonload
is unacceptable. Aid should be
focused on where it is most
needed, “the costly part of the
last mile,” and not on long-
haul distance flows between
marshalling yards.
The focus on the last mile
should especially apply to
sidings where traffic volumes
and the frequency of service
are low. “That would also lead
subsidies not only towards the
incumbents but rather to all
actors involved in rail freight,”
Erfa says.

Rail reform is go, says British transport secretary
T RANSPORT secretary, Mr
Mark Harper, has
reaffirmed the British
government’s commitment to
the rail reform programme
centred on the creation of
Great British Railways (GBR), a
new governing body to bring
together a fragmented industry
and provide a single point of
accountability.
Harper was speaking during
the annual George Bradshaw
address hosted by Rail
Partners, and said that the
sector will drive passengers
away if it is left untreated. “We
have a broken model,” he said.
“Only major reform can break
that cycle of decline.”
To increase revenue, Harper
said it was necessary to instil
“a customer-first culture,” and
Plan to boost KTZ fleet outlined
K AZAKHSTAN’s prime
minister, Mr Älihan Smaiylov,
has outlined plans for the
delivery of locomotives, coaches
and wagons to boost the fleet
of Kazakhstan Railways (KTZ).
These include 187 diesel
locomotives from Wabtec and
unspecified Russian
manufacturers in 2023-2026.
Assembly of the Wabtec fleet
will be undertaken at the
Lokomotiv Kurastyru Zauyty
(LKZ) facility in Kazakhstan. A
total of 70 diesel locomotives
are expected to arrive in the
first half of 2023.
The second planned order is
for 245 electric locomotives to
be supplied by Alstom in 2023-
2029. They will be procured
First female drivers begin work in Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia has
celebrated the start of work by 34 female train drivers on the
Haramain high-speed line between Mecca and Medina. Female
staff now make up just under 25% of the 140 drivers employed
by operator Renfe KSA.
IRJ March 2023 11
tackle fares and ticketing, the
issue of greatest concern to
passengers. He announced
that, following a successful
trial at London North Eastern
Railway (LNER), single leg
pricing would be extended to
other parts of the LNER
network from this spring.
Demand-based pricing would
also be trialled at LNER.
He added that the
government will respond to
consultation on GBR’s
legislative powers by this
summer. “The GBR Transition
Team will develop the guiding
long-term strategy for rail
which we will publish later
this year,” Harper said.
He also spoke in favour of
the new Passenger Service
Contracts for private operators
under a long-term contract
signed by KTZ for 250 KZ8A
freight locomotives and 119
KZ4AT passenger locomotives.
KTZ has signed three long-
term contracts worth a total of
€2.3bn for sleeping and couchette
cars, including maintenance
over 20 years. A total of 307 coaches
will be built by unspecified
Russian manufacturers in 2023-
24 while Stadler will supply
537 coaches by 2029.
Finally, 1500 gondola and
601 container flat wagons are
expected to be delivered this
year. The gondola wagons will
be built by KTZ subsidiary,
Kazakhstan Car-Building
Company, for fellow
subsidiary Kaztemirtrans.
which “will balance the right
performance incentives with
simple, commercially-driven
targets.” He also described the
role of open-access operators
as important for the industry’s
future.
“Risk will sit where it is best
managed and that includes
with operators, but only where
it drives the best outcomes for
passengers and taxpayers,”
Harper said.
“We’ll also open up railway
data and systems, whilst
lowering barriers to entry for
the industry,” Harper said.
“For ticketing, that means a
more competitive retail market
and I will welcome new
players to spur more
innovation and give passengers
the services they need.”
€934m Trento
bypass contract
awarded
I
TALIAN infrastructure
manager RFI has awarded a
consortium led by Webuild a
contract worth €934m to build
a 13km largely underground
bypass in Trento, south of the
Brenner Base Tunnel (BBT).
The contract for Lot 3A was
awarded as part of widening
the Fortezza - Verona high-
speed line to four tracks.
Webuild has a 51% stake in
the consortium and will lead
design and construction.
Ghella holds 35% and Collini
10%, while Webuild subsidiary
Seli has 4%.
The contract will directly
and indirectly create 1000 jobs.
Lot 3A has been identified
as a strategic project under
Italy’s National Plan for
Recovery and Resilience
(PNRR).
The bypass forms part of the
strategic Munich - Verona
corridor and is expected to
reduce CO₂ emissions by over
65,000 tonnes a year.
The contract includes
construction of a 10.6km
tunnel and two short sections
above ground alongside the
existing line.
Four tunnel boring
machines (TBMs) will be
deployed.
In brief
2020, under a 27-month
contract signed in 2019.
Poland
PKP Power Engineering has
installed photovoltaic facilities
at 345 of its substations in the
past 18 months, reaching its
goal to install 360 solar panel
systems. PKP Power
Engineering now has 11,000m2
of panels in operation at 70%
of its traction substations with
the potential to generate
nearly 2GWh a year.
Spain
The government has approved
plans to establish a Renfe
International Projects division
bringing together Renfe’s
activities outside Spain.
Creating the subsidiary meets
an objective of Renfe’s 2019-
2028 Strategic Plan. The Renfe
board has approved plans to
create a subsidiary in France,
enabling it to compete in high-
speed corridors and bid for
PSO contracts.
• The Spanish Ministry of
Transport, Mobility and the
Urban Agenda (Mitma) has
approved the central Bilbao
alignment of the future high-
speed line from Vitoria.
Following an environmental
impact assessment and public
consultation, Mitma has
approved the Option 1 eastern
route, running for 6.87km from
Basauri to new underground
platforms beneath Bilbao
Abando station.
UAE
Etihad Rail has signed a
contract with CRRC Qingdao
Sifang for the supply of three
200km/h passenger trains,
including an option for 20
additional trains and a 15-year
maintenance agreement. The
trains will consist of a diesel
locomotive, five passenger
coaches, and a driving trailer
vehicle and are expected to
enter service in 2025.
United States
Amtrak has announced that 10
manufacturers have submitted
proposals to supply new coaches
to replace its overnight fleet of
Superliner I and II double-
deck, and Viewliner I and II
single-deck, sleeping, lounge
and dining cars, some of
which are 40-years-old. IRJ
 News | transit
Quebec and Montreal to fund new metro CBTC system Korea signs
agreements for
Busan and Ulsan
rail links
K OREA’s Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure & Transport
(Molit) has signed a mutual
cooperation agreement with
local authorities to create
a “one-hour living zone”
for the cities of Busan and
Ulsan in the southeast of the
country, with development of
suburban rail networks and
Installation of CBTC is expected to be completed on the construction of a light rail
the Blue Line in 2028. Photo: Shutterstock/BalkansCat system in Ulsan forming part
of the concept.

T HE Quebec provincial
government and the city
of Montreal have committed to
invest more than $C 565m ($US
422.2m) in a new CBTC train
control system for the Montreal
Transport (STM) metro.
The project will begin with
implementation on the Blue
Line and will be financed
primarily by Quebec to the
tune of $C 296.6m, with STM
contributing $C 65.6m and a
request for additional funding
being made to the Canadian
federal government.
Installation of CBTC is
expected to be completed on
the Blue Line in 2028 and in
2029 on its 6km extension
currently under construction
from Saint-Michel to Anjou. It
will then be installed on the
Green, Orange and Yellow
lines.
“This project will ensure the
technological viability of the
metro network for decades to
come, in addition to allowing
more flexibility in the
positioning of trains,” says
STM director general, Ms
Marie-Claude Léonard.
Under the agreement signed
on December 19 2022, Molit
and the local authorities will
build a two-line light rail
network in Ulsan comprising
an 11.6km east-west Line 1
linking Taehwagang mainline
station with Sinbok, and a
13.7km north-south Line 2
connecting Bukulsan with
Yaeum via Ulsan’s city airport.
In addition, a preliminary

Mostaganem light rail lines inaugurated feasibility study - due to be

completed by the end of 2023 -

T WO new light rail lines were inaugurated

on February 18 in Mostaganem, a port city
in northwest Algeria, following completion of a
project undertaken by a consortium of Alstom
and Cosider under contracts awarded by Algiers
Metro (EMA).
Cosider was responsible for the civil
engineering works including track, catenary and
lineside signals, while Alstom supplied the
telecommunications and signalling systems,
substations, ticketing systems and depot
equipment.
The 25 43.9m-long low-floor Citadis LRVs
is underway into a planned
Southeast Circular Suburban
Railway linking Ulsan’s high-
were manufactured in Algeria by Cital, a joint speed station with Yinyeong
venture of Alstom, EMA and Ferrovial of Spain. on the Daegu - Jinju main line.
The 14.5km Mostaganem network has 24 A similar study is due to be
stations. Line T1 connects Salamander Place in the carried out into a proposed
north to the University of Kharouba in the south. suburban line from Ulsan
Line T2 connects the city’s mainline station in the high-speed station via central
east to Abane Ramdane bus station in the west. Ulsan to Nopo in Busan.

Dhaka metro Line 1 construction starts

C ONSTRUCTION of Dhaka
metro Line 1, Bangladesh’s
first underground metro line,
was inaugurated on February
2 by the prime minister, Ms
Sheikh Hasina.
The Taka 525.6bn ($US 5.2bn)
project will comprise a 19.9km
underground main section
from Hazrat Shahjalal
International Airport to
Kamalapur railway station,
Photo: Marc A. Hermann/MTA and an 11.4km mainly-elevated
branch from Natun Bazar to
New York Grand Central Madison station opens: Long Island
Purbachal Terminal.
Rail Road (LIRR) opened its new 9.8km $US 11bn East Side
The Bangladesh government
Access rail link between Jamaica in Queens and Madison station
will meet Taka 131.1bn of the
beneath Grand Central Terminal in the heart of Manhattan on
cost while the Japan
January 25. Initially, LIRR is operating a daily shuttle service
International Cooperation
between Jamaica and Madison with a full service from Long
Agency (Jica) will provide
Island starting on February 27. The two new tunnels between
Taka 394.5bn as a soft loan
Queens and Manhattan will increase train capacity from Long
under an agreement signed in
Island to and from New York City by 50% and improve reliability.
July 2022. A contract for
overseeing the works was
signed with a joint venture led
by Nippon Koei in October 2022.
Dhaka Mass Transit
Company (DMTCL) managing
director, Mr M A N Siddique,
has pledged to complete the
project by the end of 2026.
“A total of six metro rail
routes will be inaugurated in
Dhaka by 2030,” Siddique
says. This includes the second
phase of Line 6, due to open
this year, and Line 2 which is
due to open in 2030. Line 4 is
also scheduled to open in 2030,
while the Northern Route of
Line 5 is expected to open in
2028 and the Southern Route
in 2030.
The first phase of MRT Line
6, Bangladesh’s first metro line,
opened on December 28 2022.

12 IRJ March 2023


Western Bogotá light rail
finance agreement signed
C HINA Civil Engineering
Construction Corporation
(CCECC), a subsidiary of
China Railway Construction
Corporation (CRCC), will
begin building the $US 543m
Western Colombia Tram
Franchise Project (WCTFP)
following the completion of a
financing agreement.
The 39.6km light rail line in
western Bogotá, also known as
Western RegioTram, will
mostly use an existing railway
alignment to connect Bogotá
with Facatativá, Madrid,
Mosquera and Funza.
The line will have 17 stations
and will connect at Calle 26
station with the planned
Bogotá metro Line 1. The line
is expected to open in April
2026 and will carry around
NSW plans new Sydney metro lines
The proposed new metro lines will be integrated with the wider Sydney
Metro network. Image: Sydney Metro
T HE New South Wales
(NSW) government is
considering business cases
for four new metro lines in
the west of Sydney to greatly
improve access to the new
Western Sydney Airport which
is scheduled to open in 2026.
The NSW government will
spend $A 260m ($US 181.6m)
on the final business cases for
the new lines totalling 100km.
The first line would run
from the terminus of the North
West Line at Tallawong to St
Marys, where it would connect
with the under-construction
IRJ March 2023 13
130,000 passengers a day.
The contract for the design,
financing, construction,
operation, maintenance and
handover of the double-track
line was awarded to CCECC in
January 2020. CCECC was the
sole bidder for the 26-year
public-private partnership
(PPP) contract, which allows
18 months for preparation, 30
months for construction and
six months for LRV testing.
The Colombian government,
Cundinamarca region and the
contractor are all contributing
to the cost of the project.
The first six-section low-
floor articulated LRV for
WCTFP rolled off the assembly
line at CRRC Changchun
Railway Vehicles in September
2022.
Western Sydney Airport Line.
A second line would run from
Bankstown, the southern
terminus of the under-
construction metro network,
via Liverpool to Glenfield.
The other two metro lines
would run from Westmead
southwest to Western Sydney
Airport, and south from the
new airport to Macarthur.
Work on the four new lines,
if approved, would start this
year, although this could
depend on the incumbent state
government winning the state
election on March 23.
In brief
Beijing
A 9.7km metro extension from
Qinghe to Xitucheng opened on
the Changping Line on February
4, taking its total length to
43km, with trains running at a
maximum speed of 100km/h
and services operating at
intervals of 2min 30s at peak
periods.
Calgary
The city has appointed SNC-
Lavalin as delivery partner for
the 18km first phase of the 59km
Green Line light rail project.
SNC-Lavalin will provide
commercial management,
technical support, project
controls and construction
management. Phase 1 comprises
the core 18km Shepard - Eau
Claire section.
Copenhagen
Alstom has been awarded a €30m
contract to conduct mid-life
refurbishment of 34 M1 and M2
metro trains. The trains have
been in service for nearly 20
years and the upgrade programme
will last for three years.
Manila
The Philippines Department of
Transportation has awarded a
Peso 37bn ($US 672.6m) contract
to Mitsubishi for electrical and
mechanical systems and
trackwork for the Malolos -
Clark Railway. The 53km
project is the second section of
the North-South Commuter
Railway (NSCR).
Muscat
F&M Middle East, Oman, was
the only bidder for a pre-feasibility
study into a planned metro in
the Omani capital. A metro
line was being planned to run
from Ruwi and Muttrah in the
east via the city centre to Muscat
airport and Seeb in the west.
New York
The Metropolitan Transportation
Authority (MTA) has begun
testing two R211 open gangway
metro trains due to enter
service in the last quarter of
2023, to determine the
potential for further open
gangway rolling stock. The
two trains are part of a 535-car
order for R211 vehicles that
includes 15 five-car trains for
the Staten Island Railway.
Santos
The mayor, Mr Kaye Amado,
has confirmed that the Santos
light rail network in Brazil will
be extended by 7.5km to the
coastal city of São Vicente and
a tender for the project has been
published.
Singapore
The Land Transport Authority
(LTA) has awarded the final
civil engineering contract for
the design and construction of
the Cross Island Line - Punggol
Extension (CPe) to a joint
venture of construction
companies CES_SDC and Chip
Eng Seng Contractors. The
Elias station contract is valued
at around $S 562m ($US 428.1m).
Taipei
Trial operation started on
February 10 on the 7.7km
Ankeng light rail line from
Shishizhang to Shuangcheng
with passengers able to travel
free of charge until March 12.
The LRT line is expected to
carry 53,000 passengers a day.
Toronto
Mott Macdonald has been
selected as prime designer and
Scarborough Transit Connect
(STC), a 50:50 joint venture of
Aecom and FCC Canada, has
been selected as development
partner for the Scarborough
Subway Extension Stations,
Rail and Systems (SRS)
contract, which includes
buildings, substations, systems
testing and commissioning.
Toulouse
Tisséo has awarded a consortium
of Eiffage and NGE a contract
for civil engineering works on
metro Line C between Laporte
and Raynal, including an
8.4km main tunnel and six
stations. Total contract value is
€590m, with Eiffage having a
65% share and NGE 35%.
Valencia
Valencian Government Railways
(FGV) has awarded Stadler
Rail Valencia a €102m contract
for the first 16 of its new 4500
series LRVs. The contract
includes an option for up to 12
more LRVs in two batches of
six. Delivery will start 24
months after the contract is
signed. IRJ
 News | financial
North American Class 1s report revenue growth in 2022
F INANCIAL results for 2022
released by six of the seven
major US freight railways
reveal rising revenue as
increased fuel costs are passed
on to customers, while
operating expenses have also
been impacted by network
congestion.
• Norfolk Southern (NS)
reported record operating
revenue of $US 12.7bn, up 14%
on 2021, which was driven by an
18% increase in revenue per unit.
Operating expenses of $US 7.9bn
increased by 19% compared
with 2021, due to higher fuel
and staff costs, inflation, and
VTG to close tank container business
V TG will shut down its
tank container logistics
business by the end of the
second quarter of this year. All
international subsidiaries will
be closed, with the exception
of the Shanghai Cosco VTG
Tanktainer joint venture in China.
VTG says its Tanktainer
business has faced an
“increasingly fraught market
situation” since the third
quarter of 2022.
A pronounced slump in
demand for transport in the
chemical industry and declining
freight rates, “in part due to
the massive increase in energy
costs,” has been accompanied
Downer awarded contract to manufacture Queensland EMUs
A USTRALIAN manufacturer
Downer Rail has been
selected as preferred supplier
for the Queensland Train
Manufacturing Programme
(QTMP), which includes the
supply of 65 six-car EMUs.
The trains will be deployed
on the Cross River Rail project
in Brisbane and to boost
passenger services ahead of the
2032 Brisbane Olympic and
Paralympic Games.
Downer will also build a
train manufacturing facility at
Torbanlea, 25km north of
Maryborough, a maintenance
facility and stabling yards at
Ormeau in the Gold Coast
region, and maintain the new
rolling stock fleet, two train
simulators it is supplying and
the Ormeau facility for 15 years
14 IRJ March 2023
network congestion.
• Union Pacific (UP) also
reported a 14% increase in
operating revenue to $US 24.9bn
in 2022, driven by higher fuel
surcharge revenue, core pricing
gains, and volume growth.
Total revenue wagon loads
grew by 2%.
• Revenue at CSX was up 19%
at $US 14.9bn in 2022. The
operating ratio was 59.5%.
• Canadian National (CN)
reported revenue up 18% at
$C 17.1bn ($US 12.75bn), mainly
attributable to higher fuel
surcharge revenue, freight rate
increases and the positive impact
by substantial intermodal price
rises. At the same time, freight
costs can now only be forecast
on the basis of prices valid for
between three and six months.
However, VTG will not close
its tank container leasing
business. This activity is to be
developed and all staff and
assets will be transferred to the
VTG headquarters in Hamburg,
Germany, later this year.
Other VTG Tanktainer
facilities in Germany, Finland,
North America and Singapore
will close by the end of 2023.
VTG owns 5000 tank
containers, alongside its fleet
of 88,500 wagons.
initially and for a maximum of
35 years.
The complete QTMP, which
of the weaker Canadian dollar.
Operating expenses increased
by 16% to $C 10.27bn. CN’s
operating ratio in 2022 was
60%, an improvement of 1.2
points on 2021.
• Revenue at Canadian Pacific
(CP) was up 10% in 2022 at
$C 8.8bn. Operating expenses
were up 14.5% on 2021 at
$C 5.48bn, with fuel costs up
63.9% at $C 1.4bn from $C 854m
the year before.
• Kansas City Southern (KCS)
reported revenue of $US 3.37bn
for 2022, up 14% on 2021. The
operating ratio improved by 6.4
points from 70% in 2021 to 63.6%.
PolRegio to buy 200 EMUs
P OLISH operator PolRegio
has signed framework
agreements with four rolling
stock manufacturers for the
supply of up to 200 EMUs.
The four orders total more
than Zlotys 7bn ($US 1.6bn)
and financing will come from
EU grants and loans as well as
other sources such as the
European Investment Bank (EIB),
commercial debt instruments
and PolRegio’s own funds.
The four suppliers are FPS H
Cegielski, Pesa Bydgoszcz, Newag
and Stadler Polska, which all
submitted bids above budget
for a tender issued in May 2022.
Each manufacturer will
includes construction of new rail
infrastructure in the southeast of
the state, is budgeted at $A 7.1bn.
In Quarter 4 of 2022,
locomotive fuel costs were $US
120.6m, up 40.7% from $US
85.7m in Q4 2021. The average
cost of locomotive fuel in the
US and Mexico increased by
31% from Q4 2021 to Q4 2022.
• BNSF has not issued its
annual results yet, but
operating income for the first
nine months of 2022 was $US
6.5bn, an increase of $US 159m
compared with 2021. BNSF’s
operating ratio was 65.2% for
the first nine months, a 4%
increase over 2021. Total
revenue for first nine months
of 2022 increased by 14%.
supply 160km/h trains with
features such as Wi-Fi, digital
passenger information systems
and air-conditioning over the
next three years.
Two versions will be ordered
comprising either two-car
trains with at least 130 seats, or
three-car sets with a minimum
of 210 seats. The trains need to
be accessible to passengers with
reduced mobility, with low-floor
entry together with ramps or
an automatic lift. One of the
two onboard toilets must be
fully accessible.
Delivery of the new EMUs
will start in 2025 with completion
expected in July 2026.
Queensland has allocated $A
265m towards the train
procurement element of QTMP.

SNCB and Infrabel agree 10-year contracts
SNCB will aim to renew 50% of its rolling
stock by 2032, and equip its entire fleet
with ETCS by 2025. Photo: SNCB
B ELGIUM’s federal
government has signed a
PSO contract with Belgian
National Railways (SNCB) and
a performance contract with
infrastructure manager Infrabel
for 2023-2032. Business plans
and investment programmes
have also been approved for
the 10-year period.
SNCB says that the previous
management contracts agreed
in 2008 had expired nearly 10
years ago, and that it was
“particularly urgent” to
conclude new 10-year agreements.
According to SNCB, the
contracts are “totally aligned,”
so that targets for increasing
passenger services are based
on the expected capacity
increases delivered by Infrabel’s
investment programme.
SNCB’s performance will be
assessed annually using 12
indicators, which include
punctuality, train cancellations
and the number of planned
connections offered. SNCB will
also be assessed on the number
of delay-minutes for which it is
responsible, rolling stock
availability, customer satisfaction
and passenger-km.
Other performance indicators
cover passenger information,
the number of stations that are
100% accessible and the
number of car and bicycle
parking spaces at stations, as
well as traction energy
consumption and SNCB’s
carbon footprint.
Financial bonuses and
penalties will incentivise SNCB
to meet these objectives. The
10-year contract includes a
mid-term review.
SNCB’s key targets for 2032
IRJ March 2023 15
include increasing services by
10% without increasing costs,
offering 40% more connections,
and increasing the number of
suburban services in major
cities by 25%. SNCB is also
expected to increase passenger
traffic by 30%.
SNCB will aim to renew 50%
of its rolling stock by 2032, and
to equip its entire fleet with
ETCS by 2025.
Through productivity
improvements of 4.5% a year,
SNCB expects to reduce its
debt by €800m to reach €1.6bn
by 2032, while income should
increase by 40% as passenger
traffic rises.
SNCB will invest €9.2bn over
the 10-year period comprising
€4.2bn for rolling stock, €1.4bn
for workshops, €1.8bn for stations,
€1.2bn for digitalisation and €600m
for property and other projects.
Infrabel
To improve performance
and to provide sufficient
capacity for increasing
passenger and freight traffic,
the federal government has
approved a €16.4bn package to
fund Infrabel from 2023 to
2032. Including €1.75bn of new
funding, this will be split
between €11bn for investment
and €5.4bn for operating and
maintaining the network.
Under the plan, €7bn will be
spent to maintain capacity and
improve punctuality, which
includes removing all speed
restrictions by 2030.
Infrabel will complete the
rollout of ETCS by the end of
2025 and will spend €2bn to
accelerate digitalisation.
In brief
Britain
Great Western Railway (GWR)
has agreed to acquire certain
assets of British rolling stock
manufacturer Vivarail, which
entered administration in
December. This includes
intellectual property, a class 230
battery train and FastCharge
technology equipment to
secure the future of battery
trials due to take place in west
London. GWR has also employed
nine former Vivarail staff.
Czech Republic
RegioJet has announced plans
to establish a train leasing
subsidiary, RegioJet Pool,
while the company has also
signed a contract with Alstom
for 13 more Traxx MS3 multi-
voltage locomotives, deliveries
of which will begin this autumn.
RegioJet Pool will own and
manage RegioJet’s fleet of 35
locomotives and make traction
available to other operators.
Europe
Leasing company Nexrail has
confirmed an order with
Vossloh Rolling Stock (VRS)
for 50 DE 18 Stage V diesel
locomotives, comprising 40
certified for operation in
Germany for delivery in the
fourth quarter of 2023, and 10
DE 18 Stage V Smarthybrid
locomotives.
Germany
Hessen State Railway has
ordered three two-car Mireo
Plus B battery multiple-units
from Siemens Mobility. The
trains will operate on the
155km Limburg - Altenkirchen
- Au - Siegen Upper Westerwald
railway, which includes a 75km
non-electrified section, and the
35km unelectrified Limburg -
Montabaur - Siershahn Lower
Westerwald railway.
Indonesia
The government has approved
an extension of the operating
concession for the 142km
Jakarta - Bandung high-speed
rail project from 50 to 80 years.
This was requested by
construction consortium PT
KCIC in December 2022 after
it revealed a $US 2bn budget
overspend. China and
Indonesia have also agreed to
a $US 1.2bn budget increase to
complete the project, which is
due to open in June.
Japan
JR Central has ordered 13
16-car N700S Shinkansen
trains from Nippon Sharyo.
Delivery of the first two trains
will start in the 2023-24
financial year, which ends in
March 2024. Five trains will be
delivered in each of the next
two financial years, with the
final train arriving in 2026-27.
Norway
Norske Tog has agreed to
purchase an extra 25 six-car
Coradia Nordic EMUs from
Alstom at a cost of €230m after
exercising an option to extend
an order for 30 trains finalised
in January 2022. The 200km/h
EMUs will be equipped with
ERTMS. The first trains will
arrive in Norway for testing in
2024 with the remainder
delivered in 2025.
= Norske Tog has awarded
Stadler a contract for 17 eight-
car 200km/h EMUs for the
Oslo - Bergen route, with an
option for up to 100 trains. The
Flirtnex trains will have a
combination of reclining seats
and two and four-bed sleeping
compartments, a bistro and a
family area. The trains will
enter service in 2026.
Switzerland
DIF Capital Partners has
signed an agreement with
wagon leasing company
Wascosa, which will acquire,
for an undisclosed sum, the
Rota Rail II portfolio of 564
freight wagons managed by
DIF’s Core-plus Infrastructure
Fund I (CIF I).
United States
Two rail projects will receive
allocations from the $US 1.2bn
National Infrastructure Project
Assistance (Mega) programme.
The Concrete Casing for
Hudson Yards project - part of
the new Hudson River Tunnel
and Gateway Project to
upgrade the North East
Corridor between New Jersey
and New York City - will
receive $US 292m. In Chicago,
$US 117m will support
commuter operator Metra’s
UP North Rebuild: Fullerton -
Addison project. IRJ
 News | analysis
Is the Stuttgart 21 project fatally flawed?
The planned opening date for Stuttgart’s new main station is less than 34 months away, but doubts remain over
whether it can provide sufficient capacity due to steep gradients on platform tracks, as Keith Fender reports.
S EVERAL years later than
planned, the new
underground main station that
forms the centrepiece of the
Stuttgart 21 project is due to
open in December 2025. It has
involved the construction of a
complex network of new lines,
mostly underground, to
connect the new station to
lines radiating from Stuttgart.
However, questions remain
unanswered as to whether the
new station will be able to
provide sufficient capacity to
handle the 46 trains an hour
planned for 2030 under the
Deutschland Takt national
regular interval timetable.
Stuttgart 21 has been highly
controversial in Germany since
its inception, with opponents
citing everything from the
environmental damage caused
to the expense of mostly
underground construction. Its
proponents, principally the
City of Stuttgart and German
Rail (DB), have pointed to the
improved services made
possible by the new through
station in place of the historic
16 IRJ March 2023
terminus, as well as the
potential for massive urban
renewal on sites currently
occupied by the old station and
DB maintenance facilities, all of
which will be demolished if the
current masterplan is followed.
The project, as originally
conceived, was to replace the
terminus with over 16 platform
tracks with a new through
station with only eight. Advances
in both train acceleration and
braking, plus new digital
signalling - Stuttgart is Germany’s
first “Digital Node” for the
rollout of ETCS - would
require fewer tracks, especially
as trains would no longer have
to reverse in the terminus.
But since Stuttgart 21 was
first developed in the 1990s
many things have changed, not
least the planned introduction
of Deutschland Takt with
increased service frequencies
that are expected to grow
passenger numbers. The planned
increase in services makes the
new station, with only eight
tracks, seem impractical. While
trains will no longer reverse,
Stuttgart’s new main station is due to open in December
2025, but questions have been raised about its suitability
to meet future demand. Photo: Keith Fender
crews will still change (adding
time while train brakes and
other systems are checked) and
large numbers of passengers
will board and alight, all leading
to station dwell times of five
minutes or more, as seen daily
at other key German rail hubs
such as Hannover or Cologne.
The current plans for
Deutschland Takt call for 46
trains an hour through the
new station, with an extra 10
per hour at peak periods. This
equates to a minimum of 5.75
trains an hour per platform
face, with dwell times of
between 2 and 5 minutes for
long-distance services, which
in practice are unlikely to be
achievable. Any major rolling
stock or infrastructure failure
would potentially lead to
congestion. In many stations,
including the existing
terminus at Stuttgart, the
solution would be to allow
two trains to occupy some or
all platforms simultaneously,
especially shorter regional
trains. However, it appears the
new station will be unable to
do this as its designers have
built the platform tracks on
what, for a major station, is a
very steep gradient of 15.14%.
Initial concerns were raised in
1992 and have been publicly
discussed in the German trade
press since railway engineering
consultant, Mr Sven Andersen,
began writing about the issue.
Local politicians and
passenger representatives have
also raised their concerns that
the design of the station will
reduce overall network
capacity as double platform
occupancy will not be
permitted. This has also led to
calls for a smaller version of
the existing terminus to be
retained to accommodate some
of the trains that would still
terminate in Stuttgart.
Local MP, Mr Matthias
Gastel, has been a long-term
critic of the Stuttgart 21
project, as well as a leading
advocate of Deutschland Takt.
Since May 2022 he has
represented the Green Party
on the supervisory board of
infrastructure manager DB
Network. Gastel has obtained
details of the planned
operation of the new station,
which appears to confirm the
need for double platform
occupancy, but he says that it
is unclear “whether this can be
approved at all in view of the
steep track gradient.” A
spokesman for Gastel told IRJ
that “there is little new
information regarding the
capacity of the station. The
commissioning timetable is
slowly taking shape, but has
not yet been finalised.”
TSI non-compliance
Andersen has studied the
plans for the new station in
detail for many years and has
highlighted its key design
weakness. The 15.14% gradient
on the underground platform
tracks represents a six-fold
increase on the maximum
allowed by regulations and
practice in Germany, where it
must not exceed 2.5%, and
elsewhere.
This aspect of the station
design was highlighted over
30 years ago when the plans
were first unveiled, and when
the project was revived early
this century there was no
redesign to provide level tracks.
This was because of the need
to avoid existing tunnels, and
in particular for the new tracks
to pass over the concrete box
for S-Bahn services that runs at
a 90° angle under the western
IRJ March 2023 17
end of the new platforms. At
the eastern end, the new
underground tracks must pass
beneath other tunnels also at
an angle of around 90°.
The non-compliant gradient
first proposed in the 1990s
does not meet subsequent
standards set by European
Technical Specifications for
Interoperability (TSI). While
TSI Infrastructure has been
revised several times since it
was first issued in 2002, the
current version says that
gradients of tracks through
passenger platforms on new
lines shall not be more than
2.5% where vehicles are
regularly attached or detached.
As multiple-units are routinely
attached or detached at the
current Stuttgart station, it
would appear this stipulation
would apply. If so, even more
operational flexibility would
be removed by preventing
operators from doing this in
the new station.
Andersen points out that the
historic approach to maximum
gradients in platforms was
designed to prevent trains
running away, injuring
passengers as they are boarding
or alighting, or potentially
colliding with other trains.
Experience since the 1950s in
Germany has shown that even
shallow gradients can cause
real problems with modern
roller bearing axles having less
rolling resistance leading to
potential runaways on slopes
greater than 1.6%. Cologne
main station was built on a 3%
gradient to enable tracks to
reach the adjacent bridge over
the River Rhine, and 17
incidents of trains running
away were recorded there
between 2010 and 2014 alone.
For Andersen, good practice
has been demonstrated by the
new platforms beneath Zürich
main station in Switzerland.
Despite a maximum approach
gradient of 37% from the
surface, the tracks in the new
Löwenstrasse underground
station are level (see graphic
p18). Andersen told IRJ he has
written to DB Network about
his concerns several times,
personally delivering a letter
to DB board member for
infrastructure, Mr Berthold
Huber, at InnoTrans in Berlin
in September last year. DB has
yet to reply. The railway told
IRJ that it would not make a
statement on the issue.
Safety concerns
The independent pro-public
transport pressure group
Verkehrsclub Deutschland
(VCD) has been attempting to
get clarity on the impact of the
steep gradient on operation
and timetables. The local VCD
Baden-Württemberg branch
has asked the Federal Railway
Authority (EBA) to prohibit
double platform occupancy in
the new station. While the
authority has declined to do
so, it has neither refuted the
fact that the gradient of 15.14%
is six times the legal norm, nor
that this will lead to a ban on
double occupancy, instead
saying that this is a matter for
the final commissioning
permit process. The EBA has
also confirmed that the
necessary “proof of equal
safety,” confirming that the
design met the prevailing
standard requirements, was
not issued when the project
was first approved “because
this proof was not requested.”
VCD Baden-Württemberg
chairman, Mr Matthias Lieb,
told IRJ that the “the question
of the safety of the new Stuttgart
21 underground station with
regard to the gradient has
actually not been clarified.” He
added that, based upon the
wide variation between the
15.14% gradient and the
permitted maximum of 2.5%,
that if the approval process
prior to opening “were to agree
to using a proof of equal safety,
the station would not receive a
commissioning permit.”
However, Lieb added that
the Federal Ministry for
Digital Affairs and Transport
(BMDV) has told VCD that
there were no official
documents to prove equal
safety with regard to track
gradient, and that the “proof
of equal safety” regulation did
not describe the “recognised
rules of technology,” but was
an administrative standard.
 News | analysis
Therefore, according to the
ministry, “proof of equal
safety” is not necessary and it
is sufficient to “prove safety.”
“From our point of view, it
would be important to have
clarity on this question at an
early stage but, unfortunately,
DB and EBA do not want to
provide clarity on this at the
moment,” Lieb says. “In our
opinion, the timetable is
currently planned with double
occupancy, but for safety reasons
such double occupancy should
be prohibited.”
He adds that the refusal to
provide clarity on what will be
the actual capacity of the new
station helps those who do not
want to consider alternative
solutions, including a new
additional terminus. Lieb
singles out the City of
Stuttgart, which he says is
refusing to hold “objective
debate about an alternative
station that is compatible with
urban development.”
New terminus
A report undertaken for the
Baden-Württemberg state
government by Obermeyer
Planen + Beraten and published
in mid-2021 found that building
an additional underground
terminus for regional and
S-Bahn services alongside the
new through station at a cost of
€785m would be both technically
feasible and compatible with
redevelopment of railway land.
The report was welcomed by
The platform tracks for the new underground station have a 15.14% gradient, which represents a six-fold increase
on the maximum allowed by regulations and practice in Germany, where it must not exceed 2.5%.
18 IRJ March 2023
Baden-Württemberg transport
minister, Mr Winfried
Hermann, who described the
proposed additional station as
“an essential requirement for
the expansion of S-Bahn and
regional train services,” while
also providing an alternative if
operations were disrupted in
the new through station.
He remains convinced that
an additional station is
needed, or will be from 2030.
A public commitment to plan
such a station has been made
in the coalition deal between
Hermann’s Green Party and
the conservative CDU that
formed the current Baden-
Württemburg state government
in 2021, which means that this
issue will not go away quietly.
The likely refusal of federal
regulatory bodies to sanction
double platform occupancy in
the new through station due to
the excessive gradient will
probably hasten the decision
to add new capacity as part of A longitudinal comparison between Stuttgart main station and Zürich
the redevelopment of the Löwenstrasse. Image: Sven Andersen
current surface station.
Hermann has said he and transport authority simply staff being delayed will
supports a “supplementary” Verband Region Stuttgart all lead to station dwell times
underground terminal station currently dismiss the objections being significantly longer than
for regional trains, which from the state government and planned. Without double
would be relatively easy to build others, saying that the new platform occupancy or extra
when clearing the existing site, station has enough capacity to platforms, following trains
although connecting it to the deal with existing and future will have to wait in the tunnels
network would imply either traffic, this has yet to be approaching the new station.
the retention of older proven in practice. It appears The outcome of these
infrastructure that DB Network likely to many observers that discussions to date suggests
is planning to close or building simple operational problems that the final approval for
even more new tunnels. such as higher passenger opening the new station could be
While other project sponsors numbers, train defects, late delayed due to administrative
such as DB, the City of Stuttgart running connecting trains or or legal arguments over the
safety of train operations due
to the steep gradient. The more
likely alternative scenario is
that the station will open but
with operating restrictions in
place that ban double platform
occupancy and the splitting
and joining of trains, and
potentially increasing block
spacing requirements under
ETCS that reduce capacity but
avoid the risk of collisions.
Whether the opening is
delayed or capacity is reduced,
it still remains to be seen
whether the full Deutschland
Image: Plan B, Stuttgart
Takt timetable can be provided.
However, less than 34 months
from the planned opening day
it appears very likely that the
additional station proposed by
the state government will be
needed and will eventually be
built. IRJ

Alstom-Bombardier integration
enters home straight
Combating the energy crisis, stabilising the supply chain, and continuing to integrate Bombardier
Transportation are all top of the agenda for Alstom in 2023, as president and CEO Henri Poupart-Lafarge
reveals in an exclusive interview with Kevin Smith.
T HE last time IRJ sat down
with Alstom president
and CEO, Mr Henri Poupart-
Lafarge, was at the end of
January 2021, on the eve of
Alstom completing the deal to
acquire its one-time rival
Bombardier Transportation.
Poupart-Lafarge described
the €5.5bn agreement as a
“once in a decade deal” at the
time and said that it would
take three to four years to
completely integrate the two
giants of rail manufacturing.
So how has this work
progressed?
Heading into year three
Poupart-Lafarge says Alstom
is “totally in line with its
plan.” He speaks of
successfully stabilising all of
Bombardier’s projects and
re-establishing good customer
relationships, which was the
first priority. The sale of
Bombardier’s high-speed
activities to Hitachi, and the
Coradia Polyvalent or Regiolis
platform and plant at
Reichshoffen, France, along
with the Talent 3 and
associated production lines at
Heningsdorf, Germany, to
CAF have also been
completed. Poupart-Lafarge
says the focus is now firmly
on improving internal
efficiency, to make sure all
Alstom sites, whatever their
origins, are working at the
highest possible level.
“This will be the theme for
2023,” Poupart-Lafarge says.
“To accelerate the deployment
of lean management,
accelerate the deployment of
best practices for engineering
and so forth. Internally a lot
of work has already been
done on this.”
The 2021 interview also
took place around 11
months into the Covid-
19 pandemic and the
global railway supply
sector is continuing to
be caught in the
tailwinds of the crisis.
The disruption to
project delivery
resulting from Covid
lockdowns as well as
unstable supply chains,
Interview | Alstom
especially in China, the global
shortage of semiconductors,
and the high cost of raw
materials has increased the
pressure on OEMs like Alstom
and their sub-suppliers.
The war in Ukraine has
added fuel to this fire. The rising
cost of energy has had a
significant impact on the
balance sheets of manufacturers
throughout the supply chain
in the past six months or so as
they contend with an
unprecedented increase in costs;
some SMEs have reported energy
costs rising by up to 400% in
recent months. The price of
some basic components has
also risen to record levels as
the highest rates of inflation in
living memory persist (IRJ
January p4).
Poupart-Lafarge categorises
these challenges into two areas:
those that impact project delivery;
and those that impact cost.
While he says that normality
does appear to be returning to
supply as the Covid-19 crisis
eases, his number one worry is
the financial weakness of some
of the company’s sub-suppliers.
Poupart-Lafarge says the
crisis has prompted numerous
conversations on a “case-by-
case basis” about how to
tackle the difficulties and
minimise disruption, describing
the situation as “very complex.”
He admits that Alstom has
absorbed cost increases in
some areas, while in others it
has been protected by the
terms of its contracts. Delays
to some projects are almost
inevitable. However, he
says the company has
managed to prevent
these issues from
impacting on day-to-
day operations.
“It’s in our own
interest as a leader
to make sure that
the whole industry
stays on its feet,”
Poupart-Lafarge says. “The
most important thing for us is
to ensure the good delivery of
our products to our customers.”
To maintain consistency of
supply, Alstom has tweaked
how it works in some areas.
For example, the supplier has
modified the logistics chains
serving its plants in Kazakhstan
away from Ukraine, instead
looking to tap into the Indian
and Chinese markets.
Energy costs
Alstom has also taken steps
to reduce its own energy costs.
Poupart-Lafarge reports that
the company has successfully
cut energy consumption by
15% overall, with steps taken
ranging from reducing the
temperature in buildings,
improving insulation and
altering lighting, to more
complex endeavours such as
producing its own power at
some locations.
While some are extraordinary
changes and will cease as
normality returns, Poupart-
Lafarge says others will
remain in place permanently.
“Whenever you are confronted
with these types of situations
you find new ideas,” he says.
“You then have to decide
which ideas you are going to
keep and which ideas you are
going to drop.”
Poupart-Lafarge reveals that
such measures might have
taken five years to implement
before the recent crises. Instead,
they took three months, reflecting
a new-found agility among staff.
This is a trait that became
commonplace in the early
days of the pandemic. “The
way we were working
previously needed to be
challenged,” Poupart-Lafarge
says. He adds that the mindset
has shifted from a project-to-
project approach to a longer-
term and more general view of
19
 Interview | Alstom

Fleet order gallery (left to right): Alstom won a framework contract in (p15) among the early successes. programme out across all of
December 2021 to replace Dublin Area Rapid Transit’s fleet; deliveries of According to SCI Verkehr’s the former Bombardier sites
new locomotives to Indian Railways from its plant in Madehepura, India, are assessment of the global railway within the next year to 18
continuing; Alstom supplied 18 trains to Guadalajara metro Line 3; Sweden supply market (IRJ September months.
is one the countries to trial the iLint hydrogen multiple-unit.
2022 p22), the acquisition of “The next step is to make
supply. Employees are now However, Poupart-Lafarge is Bombardier has firmly sure that in a year, a year and
regularly participating in what bullish about the rail sector’s established Alstom in second a half, we are implementing all
Poupart-Lafarge describes as general prospects. place overall. Its revenues in of the good practices in lean
“what if” scenarios which, he He cites the continuing 2021 of more than €15bn were management and engineering
says, aim to nurture this strong investment and behind only CRRC, which and development at all of the
imaginative and creative way pronouncements of support recorded around €20bn, and Bombardier sites,” he says.
of working. for sustainable transport by significantly ahead of Siemens “After that the integration will
He notes that this is national and city governments with €9.2bn. be more or less done.”
particularly beneficial to across the world, whether this The successful integration of The combination of technology
Alstom as a global company. is for urban rail investment, Bombardier is central to Alstom’s from both companies is evident
Successfully doing a job at inter-city and long-distance pursuit of further growth. in products Alstom is
home or in the office that rail, or freight. Bombardier’s problems with supplying in all markets,
previously would have only Alstom’s own financial delivery of several high-profile according to Poupart-Lafarge.

happened on-site is reducing
the travel demands on key
employees, increasing their
flexibility, and Alstom’s ability
to work effectively as a truly
global supplier.
“The crisis definitely helped
us break some conventional
wisdom, such as testing the
train,” Poupart-Lafarge says.
“The guys in Le Creusot in
France were testing the
[Amtrak] high-speed train in
the US. Previously they would
not have thought about doing
it without going to the US. But
then you think about it, being
on the train has little value.
You can get all of the
information coming from the
train and then you can talk to
the person who is riding on
the train. There was a lot of
resistance, but a lot of these
systems have now changed
because of the crisis situation.”
Market
The strained geopolitical
situation and the Covid
hangover meant that 2022 was
a difficult year for many.
performance backs up
Poupart-Lafarge’s assertions.
In third quarter results for the
period from October 1 to
December 31, Alstom reported
€5.15bn in orders, with Services,
Signalling and Systems
accounting for 58% of the
total. Orders worth €15.2bn
were reported in the first nine
months of the year, a 6%
increase year-on-year. Sales
also increased by 8% year-on-
year between April and
December to €12.27bn. Alstom’s
order backlog as of December
31 was €84.6bn, which is
expected to secure sales of €36-
38bn over the next three years
and achieve Alstom’s target of
a compound annual growth
rate of 5% in sales between
2020-21 and 2024-25.
Highlights from the third
quarter include orders for 49
trains from Renfe, 18 trains
from Irish Rail, a locomotive
and maintenance order in
Kazakhstan, and an order for
312 metro cars from Delhi.
Momentum appears to be
continuing in 2023 with orders
for 25 EMUs from Norkse Tog
“
There is nowhere now where we are
too weak or too small.
Henri Poupart-Lafarge
projects were well documented.
Poupart-Lafarge says resolving
these issues by delivering
products with the level of
quality expected was an early
priority following the
acquisition. He says steadily
improving customer survey
results demonstrate progress;
the December survey produced
feedback in line with the
company’s global expectations
for the first time.
The integration process is
now moving into the efficiency
stage. The deployment of lean
management practices at the
former Bombardier plants in
Crespin, France, and at the
Ciudad Sahagún plant in
Hidalgo, Mexico, in December
are key steps. Poupart-Lafarge
says the plan is to roll this
He points to the example of
combining Bombardier’s
interlocking technology with
Alstom’s ERTMS solution to
improve the company’s
competitiveness in the German
signalling market, which
Poupart-Lafarge describes as
“one of the most important in
the years to come.”
Bombardier’s flagship Traxx
locomotive has also benefited
from the introduction of
Alstom’s onboard ERTMS
unit. The hope is that Traxx
will become more competitive
with Siemens’ Vectron, which
ironically also uses the Alstom
onboard unit, and for which
the German manufacturer
secured a flurry of orders in
2022.
“It has taken us some time

20 IRJ March 2023

to replace the Bombardier
system with the Alstom
ERTMS system on the Traxx,”
Poupart-Lafarge says. “We
went out of the market a little
bit. But the first Traxx with the
Alstom onboard unit is now
being released and we are now
looking to re-enter the
market.”
Alstom is also profiting
from a larger manufacturing
and engineering footprint.
This is especially evident in
North America where
Poupart-Lafarge says Alstom
“is benefiting a lot” from the
addition of the engineering
centre at St Bruno, Quebec, as
well as various former
Bombardier sites across
Canada and the US. He says
these are now working closely
together to deliver North
American projects, whether
they originated from the
Alstom or the Bombardier
portfolio.
“Wherever we are, on all
continents, in all markets, we
have a pretty good size,”
Poupart-Lafarge says. “There
is nowhere now where we are
too weak or too small.”
Innovation
Scale is one thing, but
equally critical for future
success is the capability to
innovate. Innovation is one of
the pillars of the Alstom’s 2025
strategy, which emphasises
sustained investment in
research and development.
Large OEMs often find it
difficult to innovate as
effectively as smaller, more
agile firms. Poupart-Lafarge
says he is aware of these
constraints but says Alstom
operates in accordance with
the Technology Readiness
Level (TRL) to overcome this
challenge.
The scale runs from one to
nine, where one denotes
theoretical or academic studies,
where Alstom partners with
various academic institutions,

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IRJ March 2023 21

 Interview | Alstom
and nine is ready for market.
At levels five and six, proof of
concept, where agility is
essential, Alstom engages with
start-ups, encouraging these
firms to work alongside it on
projects, “allowing them to be
agile for us.” The nine-month
financial results also hint at
Alstom’s flexibility to pursue
growth opportunities through
focused, bolt-on mergers and
acquisitions, specifically in
services and signalling. In
addition, Alstom is a founding
member of Europe’s Rail,
which Poupart-Lafarge says is
providing an essential framework
for fostering collaboration to
drive standardisation.
“We need to be a part of
bodies that define the
appropriate performance
standards, such as ERTMS or
TSI,” he says. “Shift2Rail can
help arbitrate on the higher
level TRL technologies, where
we might have difficulty
aligning with our competitors.”
Hydrogen
As for current areas of
development, hydrogen traction
has been a key focus in recent
years as an alternative to diesel.
Alstom was the first
manufacturer to introduce
hydrogen-powered trains into
commercial service when its
iLint two-car hydrogen multiple-
unit entered passenger
operation in Germany in June
2022. This followed four years
of pilot operation and Alstom
has pushed for introduction
elsewhere, securing additional
iLint orders from Germany
and Italy, and from France for
a hydrogen variant of the
Regiolis multiple-unit, a
project that it continues to
work on alongside CAF. It will
also demonstrate the iLint in
Canada later this year following
similar trials in Austria, the
22
Netherlands, France, Sweden
and the Czech Republic.
Government and industry’s
growing recognition of hydrogen
as a viable alternative fuel
source is encouraging for
Poupart-Lafarge, especially the
launch of large-scale
development programmes in
several countries around the
world, which rail could
potentially access. Bringing
down the cost of hydrogen
trains so they are more
competitive is now the priority
for Alstom, and Poupart-
Lafarge says the manufacturer
is actively working with its
fuel cell partners and its
customers to achieve this.
“I think it is evolving at a
normal pace,” Poupart-Lafarge
says. “First we studied the
technology and then we work
on the cost. But one thing that
is out of our control is the cost
of production and the supply
of green hydrogen… the cost
of trains will mostly depend
on the cost of green hydrogen.”
He offers a similar assessment
of the need to reduce the cost of
battery trains, which Alstom is
also developing for applications
of 80-100km between charges
and for which he says the
technology is roughly at the
same level of maturity.
Mainline automation is
another area that the railway
sector is pursuing to provide
extra capacity and reduce
energy consumption. Poupart-
Lafarge is buoyed by progress.
Several milestones were
achieved on projects in France
and Germany in 2022, while
the first demonstration of a
driverless shunting locomotive
at GoA4 in the Netherlands at
the end of November was a
big highlight for Alstom. The
locomotive was able to operate
and detect obstacles without
the direct involvement of
onboard staff.
“One thing that was new in
2022, which was not always
present in the past, is that
some operators are starting to
talk about driverless ATO
because of their difficulty in
recruiting drivers,” he says.
In general, onboard ERTMS
“
We fought a long time to get the
Fourth Railway Package and now we
have it, we need to make sure that it
brings results.
deployment on the European
rolling stock fleet is progressing
well, according to Poupart-
Lafarge. However, he says the
story is quite different for
ERTMS infrastructure.
Poupart-Lafarge hints at a new
innovation project that will
bring down the cost of
deployment, which alongside
a piecemeal approach to rollout,
is a thorn in the side of delivering
the Single European Rail Area,
which remains tantalisingly
out of reach.
He is though a strong
supporter of the Fourth
Railway Package’s Technical
Pillar and specifically the work
of the European Union Agency
for Railways (ERA) as the sole
authority for vehicle
authorisation in Europe. He
says this provides a strong
framework to finally end the
need for compliance with
hundreds of national rules,
which slowed down the
process in the past, as well as
stabilising the process of
updating the Technical
Specifications for
Interoperability (TSI).
“We fought a long time to
get the Fourth Railway
Package and now we have it,
we need to make sure that it
Alstom will supply 245 electric locomotives
to Kazakhstan Railways (KTZ) by 2029.
brings results, both in terms of
acceleration and harmonisation,
which offer added stability,”
he says.
Poupart-Lafarge is similarly
an advocate for greater
awareness of the cybersecurity
threat posed to railways by the
growing adoption of internet-
connected assets and systems.
He says Alstom has invested
significantly in this area and
says that railways in general
must be aware of and ready
for the impact this will have
on traditional business models.
“The way to do it in the past
has been to have very stable
software for 40 years,” he says.
“Cybersecurity does not stand
still, so we need to make sure
that our trains are also secure
for the next 40 years. This may
require us to adapt the product
but also the way of working.
“It’s our responsibility,” he
continues. “We are not only
working on common products,
but we are also working with
operators on their existing
assets and systems. We want
them to be totally secure.”
Alstom has not stood still in
the past two years. Far from it.
With the former Bombardier
Transportation products and
plants playing an increasingly
important role, and with a
burgeoning order book, the
manufacturer appears well
placed to challenge CRRC at
the top of the global
manufacturer charts. Size is
not always everything, but it
certainly helps. IRJ
 East Asia | Singapore

Singapore charts a path to a 45-minute city

A revised structure for governing Singapore’s metro network, in which the Land Transport Authority (LTA) plays a
central role as asset owner and overseer of new network construction, renewals and upgrades is providing a
long-term framework for boosting network utilisation and reliability. It is also providing interesting lessons for
other rapid transit networks as they continue to recover Covid-19 ridership, as Kevin Smith discovers.

Around 70% of pre-pandemic peak-hour passengers in Singapore have returned, with

demand now more evenly spread throughout the day. Photo: Shutterstock/Jerome Quek

L
AND is a precious commodity in
Singapore. There is only so much
space to build and develop on the
island. And with the world’s third highest
population density behind only Macau
and Monaco, the pressure to make the
best use of the space available is intense.
Roads take up 15% of all of Singapore’s
land, a figure the government believes
is too high. Following years of quotas
on new vehicle registrations, the
number of private cars allowed on the
city-state’s roads was frozen in 2018 to
encourage more people to use public
transport. All new metro construction
also takes place underground.
This is continuing with work on eight
new build and extension metro projects
underway (see panel), which will
expand the network to 360km by the
early 2030s. The goal is for 80% of
Singapore’s population of more than 5.5
million people to be within a 10-minute
walk of a metro station by 2030. The
Land Transport Authority (LTA) is also
pursuing a policy to enhance first and
last mile travel options, including the
steady adoption of active mobility
solutions and a focus on improving
walking, which is especially difficult in
the city centre, by introducing more
covered linkways. By 2040, the government
hopes that all residents will be able to
reach their nearest neighbourhood
centre in 20 minutes, and that all
journeys between homes and places of
work will take 45 minutes or less.
Singapore’s strategy, in particular on
private car ownership, is envied by
public transport advocates from car-
choked cities around the world. Yet
even Singapore is experiencing a
challenge to established patterns of
public transport use following the
Covid-19 pandemic. This is sparking a
major rethink of how to utilise the
current and future network to meet the
needs and expectations of passengers.
During the plenary session at the
Singapore International Transport
Congress and Exhibition (SITCE) hosted
by LTA and the International
Association of Public Transport (UITP)
in November, LTA deputy CEO, Mr
Chong Kheng Chua, described the
“new normal” and the shift to
homeworking on two to three days per
week as “the biggest challenge” facing
public transport in the city state.
Around 70% of pre-pandemic peak-
hour passengers have returned to trains
operated by Singapore’s two metro
operators, SMRT and SBS Transit
(SBST). However, these passengers are
not using the network in quite the same
way as they did before the pandemic. In
an interview at LTA’s offices, Chua told
IRJ that changes in inter-regional travel
from 15% of all journeys to 35% now is

IRJ March 2023 23
 East Asia | Singapore

Metro project construction continues at pace

Singapore map update 2014 updated again 2023

Simon Artymiuk, News Reporter Singapore

MALAYSIA Johor Bahru IRJ
Metro open

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HE 13.2km Phase 3 of the Woodlands Metro planned
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SEE INSET son Marine Parade
Caldecott section on August 28 2021. Orchard 1
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2 Pandan Reservoir
Delays caused by the Covid-19 4
pandemic have impacted delivery of 3
6 Harbourfront
the 13km TEL Phase 4, the section from 8
1 Little India 7 Raffles Place
2 Bugis 8 Chinatown
Gardens by the Bay to Bayshore, which 3 Promenade 9 Outram Park
7 4 Dhoby Ghaut 10 Bayfront
is now anticipated to open in 2024. TEL 9 10 5 5 Gardens by 11 Marina Bay
Phase 5 from Bayshore to Sungei 11 12
the Bay 12 Marina South
6 City Hall
Bedock will open in 2025.
SMRT Trains was awarded a nine trains on different levels. Phase 6 of the Circle Line (CCL) will
year contract in September 2017 to The DTLe project has faced many extend the 35.5km line by 4km from
operate TEL, which is the first rail project engineering challenges due to its Marina Bay to Harbour Front, as well as
in Singapore where the government proximity to the Sungei Bedok river completing the circular route and adding
will bear revenue risk on operations. mouth and several canals, necessitating three stations. Tunnelling works are
Also planned, with an expected tunnelling through thick marine clay complete and opening is scheduled for 2026.
completion date of 2040, is a TEL extension and sand and the diversion of two Also due to open in 2026 is the cross-
from Sungei Bedok to Changi Airport waterways, as well as numerous border Singapore - Johur Bahru
Terminal 5. The project will involve underground utilities. (Malaysia) Mass Rapid Transit (RTS
converting the Tanah Merah - Changi Construction of the North East Line Link), which will cross the Strait of
Airport section of the East-West Line (NEL) Punggol Extension began in 2017 Johor on a 25m-high bridge between
(EWL) to form part of the extension. with the aim of lengthening the 20km Woodlands North in Singapore and
Work is also underway on building NEL by 1.6km to Punggol Coast. The Bukil Chagar in Malaysia.
the 2.2km Downtown Line East Coast extension will serve a business park in Groundbreaking for the Ringgits
extension (DTLe) from Expo to Sungei the Punggol Digital District and 10bn ($US 2.3bn) project took place in
Bedok. Completion is expected by 2025. Singapore Institute of Technology’s January 2021. It is being designed, built,
The extension will connect with the (SIT) new campus. Expected opening of financed and maintained by a joint
planned East Coast Integrated Depot, this extension has been brought venture of Malaysia’s Prasarana and
accommodating EWL, TEL and DTL forward from 2030 to 2024. Singapore’s SMRT under a 30-year

the most stark. Demand is now more
evenly spread throughout the day.
He says this is reflective of some
companies deciding to operate outside
of the city centre and the emergence of
numerous poly-centres, which offer a
mix of housing, work and entertainment
options. Flexible working also means
that less people are tied to peak-time
travel to offices in the city centre.
“That pattern will be more entrenched,”
Chua says. “And that’s what we hope
actually because intra-regional travel is
far more efficient than bi-directional
travel, when trains into the central
business district (CBD) are packed
during the morning peak, but going the Automation is the key lever in this
other way they are relatively empty.” process. Singapore possesses the
LTA has made these observations world’s largest driverless metro
from mining the reams of data that it network, with all lines built since the
now has at its disposal from the city’s North East Line in 2003 equipped with
integrated fare collection system. This CBTC. Chua says reduced instances of
in turn is helping the authority to make human error, which can cause delays
informed decisions on asset allocation. throughout the system, was a major
Chua says a more even spread of demand justification for going driverless. “As
is beneficial to the overall network because long as you have the trains available,
assets such as trains can be better utilised you are able to respond,” he says.
than when serving peak-time demand LTA’s increased oversight is a result
from thousands of people all travelling of the New Rail Financing Framework
in a single direction. This also translates (NRFF). This was initially rolled out
to improved returns from fares because with LTA and SBST for the Downtown
people’s needs are better served. Line in 2011 with NRFF Version 2

24 IRJ March 2023
concession agreement. Construction in
Malaysia began in 2020, and in
Singapore in 2021. Once open the line is
forecast to carry 10,000 passengers per
hour in each direction, and passengers
will be able to clear both Singapore and
Malaysian customs at their point of
departure. To achieve economies of
scale, the RTS Link will utilise the same
trains, signalling and communications
systems and main maintenance
facilities as Singapore’s TEL. CRRC
Zhuzhou will supply rolling stock
while Siemens will equip the line with
CBTC and install platform screen doors
under contracts awarded in May 2021.
The Jurong Region Line (JRL) will be
a 24km elevated line linking National
Technological University (NTU) with
the Jurong Innovation Area and the
future Tengah development, while also
serving Jurong Lake District. The line
will have 24 stations, including three
interchange stations. Stage 1, the
section from Choa Chu Kang to Boon
Lay/Tawas with 10 stations is due to
open in 2027, and Stage 2 from Tengah
to Pandan Reservoir with seven
stations in 2028. Stage 3, which will run
from Boon Lay to Jurong Pier and
Tawas to Peng Kang Hill, is slated to
open in 2029. LTA has awarded a
27 - 28 June 2023
Johannesburg
South Africa
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contract to Hyundai Rotem for the
supply of 62 fully-automated trains, the
first of which is expected to arrive in 2024.
The Cross Island Line (CRL) will be
Singapore’s longest fully integrated line
at 50km. Construction of the 29km
Phase 1, from Aviation Park to Bright
Hill with 12 stations, began in January
2023. The line will serve both
residential and industrial areas and
once Phase 1 opens, scheduled for 2030,
it is expected to carry more than
600,000 passengers a day.
Construction work on the 15km Phase
2, from Turf City to Jurong Lake District
with six underground stations including
two interchanges, is expected to begin
in the first half of 2023 and is scheduled
to open in 2032. LTA has awarded a $S
758m tunnel design and construction
contract to a joint venture of Obayashi
and Shanghai Tunnel Engineering.
The 7.3km, fully underground CRL
Punggol Extension will link Pasir Ris to
Punggol. In January 2023 LTA awarded
a contract worth $US 562m for the
design and construction of Elias station
and tunnels to a joint venture of CES_
SDC and Chip Eng Seng Contractors,
which is expected to start construction
in the second quarter of 2023. Opening
of the extension is likely to be in 2032.
introduced for the other metro lines
operated by SMRT in 2016 and SBST in
2018. The Downtown Line also transitioned
to Version 2 on January 1 2022.
The objective is to enable the
government to plan the network
holistically to improve rail capacity.
Under the model, LTA owns the rail
operating assets previously held by the
public transport operators along with
the rail infrastructure. LTA makes
decisions on new construction, asset
upgrades and replacement while the
operators remain responsible for
maintenance. LTA also shares revenue
risk with the operators, which pay an
annual licence charge for the right to
use the assets and operate the lines. The
licence periods are now limited to 15
years rather than 30-40 years under the
previous model.
Under Version 2, LTA strengthened
the profit and risk sharing mechanisms
to reduce commercial volatility for the
operator while calibrating the risk borne
by the government. If ridership is much
lower than expected and the financial
performance of the operator suffers,
LTA shares some of the shortfall in fare
revenue and profits, as it did during the
Covid-19 pandemic. Conversely if
profits outperform expectations, the
operator will pay an increased licence
 East Asia | Singapore
charge with these funds allocated to the
Railway Sinking Fund, which is used to
renew operating assets.
“The cost of the renewals is always a
burden,” Chua says. “We don’t want
them to be worried about that so we
have relieved the operators of that
responsibility. They can focus on the
doing, serving the customers.
“The second part is that if we are
looking at the need to make enhancements
to capacity, we, the asset owner, can
probably do it in a way that is more
timely. If the operator is the asset owner,
he may have to take into account other
considerations such as costs and viability,
which will slow down implementation.”
LTA has focused on six big-ticket items
in its renewal strategy: CBTC signalling,
third rail and replacing concrete sleepers,
which Chua says have been completed.
Fleet improvements, upgrades to track
circuits, which act as a fall-back system,
and the power supply continue. Chua
says that upgrades to communications
systems are also planned.
Taking on these added responsibilities
was not as simple as flicking a switch. LTA
had to build up a level of competence
“
The cost of the renewals is always a burden. We don’t
want them to be worried about that so we have relieved
the operators of that responsibility. Chong Kheng Chua
and understanding so, as the asset
owner, it could adequately monitor the
performance of assets and the maintenance
work taking place. It also needed to
make informed decisions of when and
where to make specific investments in
renewals, and to justify budget requests
to the Ministry of Transport.
Central to this strategy was the
establishment by Chua of the Rail Asset
Operations and Maintenance Group
(RAOMG) in 2015. Initially the group
was made up of people from LTA and
the operators, including existing
engineers and some who had left the
organisation but whom Chua felt would
offer invaluable insight from their
various experiences. The group was
subsequently expanded to people
outside the industry who “understand
asset management,” according to Chua,
including the consultancy Jacobs.
Ultimately the group’s work enabled
LTA to secure the ISO 55001 standard
26 IRJ March 2023
for asset management with Jacobs
playing a key role in ensuring compliance.
“We consulted with Jacobs to help us
think through who is the asset steward,
who is the asset owner, and the
different roles, and we organised
ourselves along those lines,” Chua says.
“That’s how we got the ISO certification.
And once we got ourselves into a stable
position, it becomes more routine.”
Chua adds that the focus now is on
how LTA can optimise its work and
resources, with a particular emphasis
on deploying the latest technology and
working processes. The introduction of
the Rail Enterprise Asset Management
System (Reams) by a consortium of
Siemens and ST Engineering Electronics
on the Downtown Line is an example of
this work in practice.
Chua says at the top-down level, this
process has involved looking at the
network as a system of systems to
optimise how they are managed and
maintained. The work with Siemens
and ST focuses on developing a
software platform that will store and
analyse data from the Downtown Line’s
maintenance management system and
the core asset systems such as trains,
signalling, platform screen doors,
power supply, track, communications
and the integrated supervisory control
system. The technical data collected will
be combined with financial information
to create decision-supporting tools for
data-centric asset management,
including predictive maintenance.
Reams is equipped with data analytics
capabilities and expertise from Railigient,
Siemens’ data analytics application
suite for rail. Chua says that the idea is
to identify correct information from
various sources and to make recommendations
for maintenance that are optimised to fit
within the planning schedule, taking
into account the life of particular assets
and their current performance. The
project has initially focused on the
major systems such as signalling,
rolling stock and power systems.
Ultimately Reams should facilitate
predictive maintenance and renewals
Kevin Smith meets with LTA deputy CEO,
Mr Chong Kheng Chua, at LTA’s offices.
although this does appear a little way
off. Chua says there is currently a lack
of condition monitoring equipment and
data loggers installed on key assets and
work is now focusing on improving this
reporting capability. There are also issues
with aligning the reporting of data from
the various collection systems in place.
“While there are certain aspirations,
we also recognise that it will take a bit
of time because you need a lot of data,”
he says. “You need clean data.”
“Our strategy was to start with the
Downtown Line because it was a new
line with more sensing equipment and
data available. Unfortunately, the thing
we found is that with the new line, the
failure rates are not that high. Sure,
once you get past the bathtub curve,
then you’re quite stable. So because of
that, we do not have a lot of data.”
Nevertheless, work is underway to
roll the strategy out on further lines,
with Chua identifying the North-South
East-West Line where older fleets are
being replaced as an obvious target.
Installation of condition monitoring
equipment is underway here as well as
on signalling and the power supply
assets. “Slowly but surely, I think we
will get there,” he says.
Having sufficient levels of skills within
in-house teams is the major challenge,
according to Chua. The specialists in
RAOMG have played an invaluable role
in helping LTA’s transition to an asset
owner and in its future asset management
ambitions. Yet Chua recognises that a
skills shortage could impede future
progress, particularly in the signalling
field. While Alstom, Hitachi, Thales and
Siemens are all active in Singapore, he
says recent market consolidation is
limiting the pool of partners that LTA
and others can work with.
“It is down to a few big players and
we are depending on them to perform,”
Chua says. “They all have so many
projects all over the world and the issue
is whether they can give me enough
attention, and even when they do, whether
there are enough resources. We are
always in touch with the senior people
on the contractor’s side to make our
case. But we need to make sure there is
enough capability in the long-term.”
LTA has countered this by opening a
CBTC Simulation Facility (CSF) for each
of its metro lines. CSF offers a digital
twin that simulates the actual track and
train equipment on a portion of the line
suitable to conduct testing, troubleshooting
and training. “This has worked well,”
Chua says. “We cannot be solely reliant on
testing that has taken place elsewhere.”
LTA also trains its own signalling
engineers to develop their capability to
understand the CBTC systems in use,
which Chua says are “getting more and
more complex.” Another key element in
LTA’s strategy is the development of
the International Train Testing Centre
(IRJ January p38), which will provide a
dedicated railway research and testing
facility, easing the strain on the
operational network as the location for
these tasks, and potentially speeding up
the introduction of new equipment.
Digitalisation
The operators are also enhancing
their own in-house capabilities. Strides,
the innovation and business arm of
IRJ XXXXX2023
IRJ March 2016 27
SMRT, is working to maximise the
opportunities of digitalisation for the
operator by acting as a bridge between
the industry and the railway operating
environment.
Mr Choon Siong Kho, deputy head of
digital systems and digital business
innovation at SMRT, illustrates the role
Strides plays by referring to the example
of a video analytics system used at one
of SMRT’s stations and the impact on
passenger behaviour from one of
Singapore’s frequent heavy rainstorms.
“Operational dynamics is something
that when we talk to various solution
providers, they lack the knowledge to
be able to translate technological
knowledge into an operational gain,”
Kho says. “That is where we partner
with these folks. It is not a technology
aproduct that we are after, it is a
solution.”
As well as intricate knowledge of
railway operation, Strides is staffed
with experts who have worked outside
the industry in fields such as aerospace
and for tech firms including Google,
providing valuable experience of the
latest technology and working practices.
SMRT signed several MoUs with major
technology providers including Alstom
and Thales at SITCE and Kho says this
reflects the operator’s changing approach
to working with the industry. These
agreements emphasise collaboration on
key projects rather than reliance on a
supplier to deliver an outcome.
“I think the whole industry is
beginning to realise that a tech provider
cannot change the industry on their
own, and neither can an operator, as
much as we want to change it,” Kho
says. “But together, I think there is a lot
SMRT is using Strides, its innovation and business arm,
to maximise the opportunities of digitalisation by acting
as a bridge between the industry and the railway
operating environment. Photo: Shutterstock/ Duc Huy Nguyen
of synergy that we are able to export.”
SMRT’s approach to digitalisation
also varies to that typically adopted by
others, which tends to focus on
installing one or two disparate digital
systems, SMRT’s strategy from around
a decade ago, according to Kho.
While this might be sufficient if there
are “one or two pain points,” Kho says
Strides’ observations and research has
shown it is not an effective way of
working. Instead, the company has
devised a strategy that focuses on the
objectives of the national strategy and
delivering improvements network-
wide. This is based on the three primary
areas for which Strides is responsible:
iTrain, iStation and iDepot. However,
Kho says it soon became apparent that
there is a lot of synergy from the data
generated in each of these sub-areas
from which Strides is able to derive new
insight. This is informing decision
making, and ultimately helping to offer
a more reliable and relevant service.
“This is something we believe we can
begin to share with other operators,”
Kho says.
A functioning and comprehensive
public transport network is a central
pillar of Singapore’s pursuit of further
economic growth and domestic
development. Its approach to public
transport has long been the envy of
others. While other cities continue to
grapple with clawing back post-Covid
ridership, LTA and the city’s operators,
armed with a holistic network
management and development strategy,
appear well placed to meet their
ambitious targets for network growth
and public transport use. The 45-minute
city is very much within reach. IRJ
27
 East Asia | Cambodia
Cambodia’s railway revival continues
Royal Railway’s resourcefulness has transformed Cambodia’s metre-gauge railway into an increasingly viable
alternative to road. But could more long-term investment be on the horizon? Kevin Smith reports from
Phnom Penh.
I
T’s a Saturday morning on a holiday
weekend in Phnom Penh, the capital
of Cambodia, and the Royal Railway
station is buzzing with activity. The two
passenger trains that depart every day
are ready, their loud horns announcing
to the locals saying goodbye to loved
ones, and tourists posing for photos on
the platform, that the train is ready to
depart.
The first train leaves at 06.40, heading
north on the 388km metre-gauge line to
Battambang in the northwest of the
country. It has an estimated journey
time of 6h 20min and is scheduled to
return at 15.00, arriving at 22.30. The
second train departs the capital 20
minutes later, heading 266km south to
Sihanoukville, where it is due to arrive
at 12.40.
After slowly snaking through the
Phnom Penh suburbs at around
25km/h, the southbound train soon
reaches its maximum speed of 55km/h.
However, with the train forced to wait
in passing loops for northbound freight
trains to clear the line ahead, by the
time it reaches Kampot, where IRJ
disembarks two hours from the train’s
final destination, it is running 1h 40min
behind schedule. Many of the other
passengers also leave the train here.
They are replaced by others, perhaps a
little frustrated, but not necessarily
surprised, at the late running. The train
was scheduled to return at 14.00,
arriving at 20.00.
“We had about 1000 passengers on
28
Saturday for the holiday,” says Mr John
Guiry, Royal Railway’s CEO, a career
railwayman from Victoria, Australia,
who has been in Cambodia since 2010.
Royal Railway reintroduced a daily
service in February 2022 following a
Covid-induced suspension and Guiry
says it is carrying 200-300 passengers on
a typical weekday. The operator ran
Friday - Monday pre-pandemic, and
according to Guiry, the increase has
grown revenue from the passenger
business from $US 20,000 a month to
around $US 100,000 now.
Onboard the coach, which seems
freshly painted and was built by
Waggonfabrik Uerdingen, Germany, in
1969, there are rows of two-by-two
bench seats that face one another and
are packed with passengers: families
and groups of young people, with the
odd western backpacker mixed in.
Many of them are using the train for the
first time and while they say they are
not sure if they will do so again, it is a
much safer experience than the busy
road that runs south from the capital.
Passengers can also enjoy views of
rice paddies, farms and small villages,
as well as the odd hill in the distance.
The intermittent air-conditioning meant
it was a little uncomfortable in the 30°C
heat - there were cheers when some
passengers forced their window open -
but it was an enjoyable experience, a
definite throwback, and for just $US 9 for
a single ticket, something of a bargain.
When IRJ returns to Phnom Penh
station a couple of days later, the scene
is very different. That day’s passenger
trains have already departed, with just
a few coaches left on the platform for
use on the busiest days and a few tank
wagons of diesel fuel lying idle in the
middle of the station, ready to refuel
locomotives the next day. The coffee
shop is deserted, with only the odd
vendor selling tickets and confectionary
left behind.
Guiry escorts IRJ to his office, which
sits adjacent to the platform. In the
centre is a large meeting table and on
the wall are four flat-screen plasma TVs
hooked up to several desktop PC towers.
Across the screens is a mosaic of live
CCTV footage from key points across
the railway network: level crossings,
sidings, freight terminals, maintenance
workshops, and the operations control
centre are all shown. The screens are
Guiry’s eyes across the network. He can
quickly zoom in on any one view from
anywhere in the country to fill an entire
screen. He can also access the footage as
well as a live GPS locator of the railway’s
rolling stock on his smartphone, so he
can keep tabs on developments
wherever he is. On the day of IRJ’s visit
he zooms in on a
particular siding
where several
tank wagons are
awaiting the
arrival of a
freight train
later that day.
He says such insight is proving critical
to managing Royal Railway’s growing
business and the team of mostly young
people that runs it.
Guiry says the TV screens that would
form part of this sophisticated
information centre were found in one of
the railway’s warehouses. “The guys
looked at what we might be able to do
with them and this is the result,” he says.
This a story typical of a railway running
on limited resources and striving to make
the best of the opportunities that
present themselves. It has made notable
progress in more recent years following
a period of upheaval and false starts.
Royal Group’s involvement dates to
2007. The railway had ceased operation
at this point following years of
mismanagement and under investment,
which resulted in infrastructure falling
into disrepair. Guiry insists that it had
previously been “a good little railway”
and this potential ultimately attracted
Australia’s Toll Group to enter into a
$US 143m joint venture with Royal to
form Royal Toll Railway.
The group was awarded a 30-year
concession by the Cambodian
government in November 2007, but
protracted negotiations meant the
contract was not signed until June 2009,
holding up the rehabilitation project.
Under this agreement, the group would
oversee the infrastructure upgrade and
restoration of service, including the
48km link to the Thai border, which
had been completely destroyed by war
“
Guiry says work will
start later this year on
a new rehabilitation
project to improve
line speeds on some
sections.
in the 1970s, and construction of a new
225km link to Loc Ninh on the border
with Vietnam.
The $US 142.56m upgrade project
benefited from a package of aid and
loans, including $US 82.4m from the
Asian Development Bank (ADB), $US 13m
from the Opec Fund for International
Development, a $US 26.9m grant from
AusAid, and the remainder from the
Cambodian government. And while
reconstruction work commenced on the
southern line in 2010, by 2014 TSO, the
French track renewals company contracted
IRJ March 2023 29
Cambodia
THAILAND
up!Cbohlpl
Poipet
Sisophon
Battambang
Pursat
Kampot City
Sihanoukville Port
alongside Nawarath, Thailand, to
conduct civil engineering work, had
suspended its activities with 70% of
work completed. Toll was soon
following TSO out of the door, exiting
the partnership with Royal in December
2014, citing lower than expected returns
and delays in track rehabilitation work
by external contractors.
A review of the Cambodian railway
rehabilitation project published by ADB
in May 2022 described the outcome as
“ineffective.” Following Toll’s departure,
the focus shifted to rehabilitating the
Southern Line, where freight services
resumed in 2013 and passenger trains in
2016. However, when the ADB loan
closed in 2016, only 23km of the northern
railway was serviceable, along with a
42km section of the 48km link to the
Thai border. Plans for the link to Vietnam
and to upgrade maintenance and
freight logistics facilities were dropped.
It is within this context that Royal
Railway has worked to increase service
levels. Despite a Chinese-backed
consortium offering a 60-year, $US 850m
takeover of the railway in 2014, the
Cambodian government reaffirmed its
commitment to Royal Group. A 30-year
operating licence was signed at the end
of 2014 to run train services and
maintain infrastructure and rolling
stock. Guiry, who had served as chief
operating officer of Toll Royal, was
appointed CEO.
As well as government funding,
Lines open
N
0 100
km
Phnom Penh
VIETNAM
Ho Chi Minh City
IRJ
Royal Group CEO and Cambodian
businessman, Mr Kith Meng, has
ploughed $US 134m into Royal Railway
since 2014 and Guiry reports how the
railway has worked diligently and
creatively to upgrade levels of service.
He says services were restored to the
Northern Line in 2018 within four months
of starting a rehabilitation project that
he led. Work involved rebuilding the
subgrade, relaying ballast, and
installing steel sleepers and used rail
from Thailand that had been stockpiled.
22 bridges and 2000 culverts were also
replaced. “We basically put it back
together again,” Guiry says.
Trains are now operating at 35km/h-
55km/h on the line. Guiry says some
sections could support 80km/h but
speeds are limited because of the
proximity of the railway to villages and
the abundance of level crossings on the
line. Indeed, he says the railway has
huge issues with getting motorists to
stop at level crossings. He also reports
constant problems with people piling
sand on the track to create a new way to
cross the railway.
Guiry says work will start later this
year on a new rehabilitation project to
improve line speeds on some sections
and to extend five or six of the line’s 11
passing loops from 450m to 1000m,
providing a critical boost in freight
capacity. Similar work will take place
on the southern line, which has longer
sections of 55km/h operation.
 East Asia | Cambodia
While the northern passenger service
currently terminates at Battambang,
Guiry says Royal was running into
Popiet before the pandemic and he is
hopeful of restoring this soon. He also
reveals that he is negotiating with State
Railway of Thailand (SRT) to extend
SRT services that currently terminate at
Poipet across the border into Cambodia.
Discussions are underway on the
commercial side of the agreement, but
Guiry is optimistic that operation could
start as early as next month.
“They have services that terminate on
the Thai side of the border and some of
those trains sit there for 19 hours,”
Guiry says. “What we’re saying is that
we extend that into Phnom Penh or
Battambang, we could run four or five
services in addition to what we run
now. That would transform the offer.”
Freight traffic already runs across the
border, including a service from the
Ford factory in Rayong province. Guiry
says Royal’s trains are transporting up
to 130 cars per train every three or four
days, carrying nearly 4000 since the
service commenced in August 2022,
providing some useful revenue. Overall,
Royal Railway’s traffic is divided
between 48% intermodal, 48% diesel fuel
and petroleum, and 4% bulk commodities
such as sand, rock, lime and cement.
The railway is now recording around
$US 1.1m of revenue per month from its
freight operation and Guiry says all of
this is sunk back into the railway to
improve the level of service.
In February, the railway is in its peak
season. All of the railway’s mishmash of
second-hand locomotives sourced from
Intermodal accounts for 48% of Royal Railway’s freight traffic.
30 IRJ March 2023
John Guiry monitors live feeds of activity across the railway from his office at Phnom Penh station.
around the world are in use, along with
the fleet of 430 wagons. Only three or
four wagons are in the workshop for
maintenance at one time, with checks
made daily in the field. Indeed, Guiry
says his biggest challenge at the
moment is sourcing enough wagons to
keep up with customer demand.
Wagon investment
A recent $US 24m bond issue is
supporting a $US 34m investment in 340
mixed short and long flat wagons and
well wagons from a South African supplier.
Guiry reports that the wagons are 15 years
old and come in $US 40,000-50,000
cheaper than new. Gauge conversion is
taking place in South Africa and the
supplier is due to send batches of 45-60
wagons to Cambodia, with completion
scheduled for the end of the year.
However, delivery has been held up
and Guiry is now sweating on when
they will arrive as pressure grows from
customers desperate to use the railway.
The addition of well wagons to Royal
Railway’s fleet will enable the
introduction of double-stack container
services for the first time, offering a
further boost to intermodal capacity, a
step that is a “no-brainer,” according to
Guiry. He says work to adjust cabling
and trial operation to check
performance in curves has already been
completed and he wants to start
operation as soon as possible. Initially
double-stack trains will carry empty
containers for customers such as
garment manufacturers, which can face
hefty storage costs at ports if they do
not move containers after four days.
“One of the advantages of using rail
is that you can bring 500 containers a
day out of the port,” Guiry says. “I
don’t want to do loaded just yet, but
that will come in a few years when we
get used to running with the empties.
We’ll do it step by step.”
Signalling upgrades are also on the
horizon. Royal Railway currently uses a
train order system with drivers
contacted by radio or phone, often
slowing down the train to receive the
order. The railway currently operates at
38-40% of its potential capacity and
Guiry hopes the introduction of a more
sophisticated signalling system could
boost this to 45-50%. He says quotes are
being sought from prospective suppliers
and he expects to have an idea of what
kind of system the railway could afford
to install in the next few months.
Royal Railway’s relative success with
very limited resources is commendable.
 However, a real step-change in
performance still requires a major
investment in upgraded infrastructure.
The Cambodian government certainly
talks up such opportunities and appears
to be making headway. News at the end
of January that China Bridge and Road
Corporation (CBRC) had completed a
feasibility study to upgrade the Phnom
Penh - Poipet line was followed on February
10 by the pledge of Yuan 300m ($US 44m)
by Chinese president, Mr Xi Jinping, to
support the railway upgrade project.
The announcement came during a
visit to Beijing by the Cambodian prime
minister, Mr Hun Sen, who also met
with several Chinese contractors,
including CBRC, with the goal of
encouraging them to back the railway
rehabilitation project as well as other
infrastructure schemes in Cambodia.
The CBRC feasibility study proposes
electrifying the line and converting it to
standard gauge to support speeds of up
to 160km/h. It estimates the cost at
$US 4bn.
Rather than conversion or dual
gauge, Guiry favours building a new
line alongside the metre-gauge railway,
which would remain operational,
rightfully pointing out that any
standard-gauge line would not connect
with the Thai metre-gauge network.
However, with Thailand and China
pursuing the construction of a standard-
gauge line to Poipet from Laos and
China, which should be completed by
the end of this decade, Cambodia could
join a new network that will transform
connectivity and freight logistics in the
entire region.
Adapted to
future challenges
Not only is Vossloh Rolling Stock setting new industry standards with its hybrid locomotive
Modula, it’s also sending a clear signal in terms of sustainability.
www.vl-rs.com
“It is going to totally, totally, totally
change the way everyone looks at rail in
the future,” Guiry says. “If you want to
export to Europe, why would you go by
ship? You would go by train.”
This proposed investment is in a
different stratosphere to the ADB-led
project and what Royal Railway has
contended with since 2014. The government
“
It is going to totally, totally, totally change the way
everyone looks at rail in the future. If you want to export
to Europe, why would you go by ship? You would go by
train. John Guiry
is seeking a build-operate-transfer
agreement with China for the project, in
which the debt incurred would be repaid
through revenue generated by the railway.
However, there is understandable concern
among analysts about Cambodia’s reliance
on China and its already high level of
indebtedness: 41% of its $US 9.47bn
debt burden is with China. Cambodia’s
GDP was $US 26.96bn in 2021.
Reports of a French consortium also
offering its services to support the
rehabilitation scheme suggests other
possible avenues to deliver the project.
Guiry also recalls similar studies by
Korean, Japanese and other Chinese
groups in recent years and points out
that it is an election year, so a lot of
promises are being made. Yet he says
the government is “pro-rail,” and while
he does not feel the project will happen
as soon as many people hope, it is the
logical next step for rail development in
the Cambodia. Royal Railway, after all,
has demonstrated its potential. “We’ve
proven that rail is a viable option, it is a
true alternative,” Guiry says.
Rail has certainly come a long way in
Cambodia in the last 15 years. Guiry
has played a central role in this. From
guiding the railway’s revival and
development, to training and mentoring
staff who knew nothing about the sector
when they joined but have now become
informed railway people in their own
right. His experience and know-how
have pushed the railway onwards and
upwards, and to the verge of its next
major transformation.
“It’s probably the best payback you
can get when you start something from
nothing and then see it operating,” Guiry
says. “Like when we put in a new siding.
There was a pond there before and
no-one believed me when I said that we
are going to install the loop. And then I
am standing there watching us move
160 20-foot containers at the same time.
It gives you a warm feeling.” IRJ
Sustainability in motion
 High-speed | Europe
Europe needs a high-speed masterplan
A study commissioned by Europe’s Rail, CER, AllRail and Unife says a masterplan is needed for high-speed rail
in the European Union if it is to achieve its potential to become the dominant mode of long-distance transport.
Robert Preston reports.
“A
T the moment we do not have a
high-speed network in Europe,”
says Mr Carlo Borghini, the
outgoing executive director of the
Europe’s Rail joint research undertaking
(p42). “We have a series of islands.”
Borghini made his remarks on January
23 as he joined his counterparts at the
Community of European Railway and
Infrastructure Companies (CER), the
Alliance of Passenger Rail New Entrants
in Europe (AllRail) and the European
Railway Industry Association (Unife) to
present the findings of a study
commissioned by the four organisations.
The report entitled Smart and affordable
rail services in the EU: a socio-economic
and environmental study for high speed in
2030 and 2050 says that joining up these
islands to create a comprehensive
49,400km network by 2050 has the
potential to increase high-speed rail’s
market share to 54% by 2070. At the
same time, investing in a network that
connects all urban centres with over
250,000 inhabitants and serving a total
population of 216 million would deliver
added value to society and massively
reduce the environmental impact of
passenger transport in Europe, creating
“sustainable and equitable mobility.”
The study was undertaken by Ernst &
Young in collaboration with Bocconi
University of Milan and Blue Arches, a
The report highlights how the introduction of open-access
competition on high-speed lines can lead to lower fares.
Photo: David Gubler
32
consultancy that specialises in sustainable
projects in the transport and energy
sectors. Four key principles underpin the
study, including comparative analysis
of high-speed rail and its competing
modes, namely conventional long-distance
rail, car and coach travel over 100km
and short-haul aviation with flight
times of up to three hours. This sought
to determine the market potential and
impact of investment in high-speed rail.
The study also considered the socio-
economic and environmental benefits of
expanding the network, and used
methodology based on robust evidence
from recent academic studies.
Three network scenarios were
considered by the study. Throughout,
market assessment and impact
assessment were undertaken, the
market assessment using a demand-
shock model to forecast demand in the
market in which high-speed rail
competes. This defined a baseline
scenario for total transport demand in
the period up to 2070, expressed in
passenger-km and differentiated by
mode, based on GDP, population
growth forecasts and the historic
development of traffic across the
competing modes.
A combination of 10 individual
demand “shocks” were applied to
simulate the effect of future regulatory
and technological developments on
passenger demand by mode. These
shocks included the development of
high-speed rail infrastructure,
competition between high-speed and
conventional rail, car-sharing and coach
competition. Also taken into account
were the taxation of airline tickets and
aviation fuel, policies to ban short-haul
flights, highway toll tax, the increase in
the price of petrol and new technology
being developed under the Shift2Rail
programme.
The impact assessment was based
mainly on cost:benefit analysis derived
from European Commission (EC)
guidelines. This compared the cost of
building new high-speed lines against
the benefits of cutting journey times
and inducing modal shift to reduce
external costs linked to CO2 emissions,
air pollution, road safety and
congestion. For the three network
scenarios, both a net present value
(NPV) and a benefit:cost ratio (BCR)
were calculated, the NPV representing
the sum of total social benefits and costs.
The study took as its baseline scenario
the current European high-speed
network as defined by the revised maps
of the European Union’s (EU) Trans-
European Transport Network (TEN-T)
programme, comprising 15,200km of
routes purpose-built for operation at
250km/h and above and upgraded
infrastructure with a maximum speed
of 200km/h to 250km/h. The baseline
scenario considers the impact of no new
high-speed or conventional rail
infrastructure, and that infrastructure
for other modes will continue to
increase in line with forecast demand.
Three network scenarios
Without new investment, the study
says that demand for high-speed rail
and its modal share are expected to
increase slowly, with the result that the
targets of the EU’s Smart and
Sustainable Mobility Strategy to double
high-speed traffic by 2030 and treble it
by 2050 will only be achieved by 2040
and 2058 respectively. High-speed rail’s
modal share would rise from around
7% in 2021 to 9% in 2030 and only 13%
in 2050. “This will leave other, more
polluting, forms of transport as the only
alternatives for travellers across the
continent,” the study report says.
The second scenario for 2030 adds to
the baseline 5300km of high-speed and
upgraded infrastructure scheduled to
be completed by this date as part of the
TEN-T Core Network. Serving an
additional population of 86 million, the
resulting 20,500km would lead to a
limited increase of about 16 percentage
points in the modal share of high-speed
rail, more than doubling the baseline
2021 figure. Market share would then
grow to reach 32% in 2070, when 958
billion passenger-km are forecast.
“More crucially for the environment,
demand for short-haul aviation would
reach an 8% share by 2070,” according
to the report.
To calculate the NPV and BCR of the
2030 scenario, the study used three
values to estimate construction cost. The
lowest figure of an average of €12m per
km, taken from a 2021 high-speed study
by the United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe, gives a total
construction cost of €63bn, resulting in
an NPV of €447.5bn and a BCR of 10.
Taking the €16.5m per km that was the
completion cost of the Paris - Strasbourg
high-speed line in France increases the
construction cost of the 2030 scenario to
€87bn, reducing the NPV to €431.5bn
and the BCR to 7.6. Finally, using the
figure of €25m per km that was
identified as the average final construction
cost in an audit by the European Court
of Auditors (ECA) in 2018 produces a
construction cost of €132bn, an NPV of
€400.7bn and a BCR of 5.
“
Railway investment requires a long-term commitment
and sufficient funding. Alberto Mazzola
The “ambitious” investment programme
that forms the basis for the 2050 scenario
would see all “functional urban areas”
in Europe with over 250,000 inhabitants
connected to the high-speed network,
with a station within a 20km radius.
The study defines a functional urban
area as a city core and its commuting
zone. Serving a total population of 216
million, this high-speed network would
include the TEN-T Extended Core
Network due for completion by 2040
and the Comprehensive Network to be
completed by 2050, as well as lines
outside the TEN-T programme,
including HS2 in Britain.
Taking the total high-speed route
length to 49,400km, the 2050 scenario
also envisages significant expansion in
eastern Europe compared with the
baseline, adding Hungary, Romania
and Bulgaria, as well as Moldova and
Ukraine, to the European high-speed
map. EU accession countries are likely
to add 4300km to the network, bringing
high-speed services to an additional 40
million people.
The 2050 scenario has a construction
cost of €410bn at an average of €12m
per km, giving an NPV of €836.7bn and
a BCR of 4. Applying the figure of €16.5m
per km increases construction cost to
€546bn, reducing the NPV to €748.6bn
and the BCR to 3. The maximum
estimated average construction cost of
€25m per km gives a total cost of €855bn,
an NPV of €561.4bn and BCR of 2.
“The positive cost:benefit ratio of the
study shows why Europe needs a high-
speed masterplan as a response to the
ongoing energy and sustainable
mobility crisis,” says CER executive
director, Mr Alberto Mazzola. “Railway
investment requires a long-term
commitment and sufficient funding,” he
adds, calling for the ongoing revision of
the EU’s TEN-T Regulation to recognise
this. According to Mazzola, with the
creation of an interoperable high-speed
33
 High-speed | Europe
network, reducing journey times between
EU capitals and major cities to between Proposed European high-speed network
four and six hours on “affordable and
comfortable” trains, “rail will certainly
become the preferred mode of
transport. This is why it is essential to
invest in high-speed rail,” he says.
The report says that accelerated
investment in a complete European
high-speed network, as envisaged
under the 2050 scenario, “will elicit a
considerable response” from passengers,
as the total length of high-speed
infrastructure in service has a major
effect on modal choice and resulting
passenger traffic. It forecasts traffic of
over 2089 billion passenger-km in 2070
when the market share for high-speed
rail would be 54%, while generating
“considerable socio-economic benefits
for European society” worth up to
€750bn over the same period. The 2050
scenario would also almost triple the
amount of CO2 saved compared with
1.5 billion tonnes that would be saved
under the 2030 scenario.
As well as building new
infrastructure, of the other “shocks”
that are expected to contribute to
growing high-speed rail’s modal share,
the report highlights the significant
increase in this and passenger-km that
is forecast around 2030 when new
technology developed under the
Shift2Rail programme is expected to be capacity constraints on the high-speed alignment with European regulations.
deployed. “The positive potential effect network, given that additional capacity The underlying assumption is that,
of Shift2Rail technology indicates that will be provided by construction of new thanks to market efficiency, both
increased investment in railway lines under the 2030 and 2050 scenarios, infrastructure managers and operators
research and development is needed to whereas certain upgraded routes in the will break even, meaning that rising or
deliver a modal shift,” the report says. baseline scenario are shared with falling maintenance and operating costs
Increased competition in the railway conventional passenger services and are directly translated into increasing or
market is also forecast to have a positive freight trains. decreasing track access charges and
effect on demand, by improving service Four assumptions are based on the ticket prices. While noting that it will be
quality and bringing down the cost of underlying premise that, in line with an important factor in the growth in
rail travel. At the same time, policies EU rail policy, operators will be demand for high-speed rail, the study
disincentivising air travel “will virtually competing in an open market. The does not take into account how fares
eliminate short-haul aviation,” the study assumes that operators will break will change over time, apart from
report says. The positive features of even or achieve “equilibrium between applying the “shock” of increased
high-speed rail in terms of the quality revenue and costs,” and that any on-rail competition. “As seen on other
of the journey, door-to-door journey financial surplus is passed on to the lines, where open-access competition
times and its low environmental impact passenger in the form of lower ticket exists, prices decrease,” the report says.
will outcompete alternative modes prices. Operators are also expected to “Independent passenger operators
when all European regions are cover investment costs from their enthusiastically support the fast growth
connected to the high-speed network. revenue; the study does not take into of high-speed rail in Europe,” Brooks
consideration rolling stock procurement says. “We want to see it displace the
to match the growth in demand. private individual motor car as a
Capacity and costs “Infrastructure alone is not enough,” product for the masses, for everyone
A series of assumptions were applied says AllRail secretary general, Mr Nick from the budget-conscious to very
in the study, aimed at simplifying “the Brooks. “High-speed trains must be affluent travellers.” Making high-speed
already complicated process” of made attractive,” he adds, before rail more attractive will require a level
estimating long-term market explaining this means combining a high playing field both within the rail sector,
development and calculating the capacity of 1000 seats per train with enabling operators to compete fairly, he
resulting economic and socioeconomic frequent departures and attractive fares. says, as well as in the wider transport
costs and benefits. To simplify the Similarly, the cost of infrastructure market. Brooks says there must be fair
market and impact assessment models, maintenance is assumed to be fully taxation for rail “versus less sustainable
the study assumes that there will be no covered by track access charges, in transport modes.” Nevertheless, AllRail

34 IRJ March 2023
is certain that the findings of the study
“will help guide national and European
stakeholders towards reaching these goals.”
While the assumptions applied in
forecasting future demand for high-
speed rail are strongly theoretical, the
report also says that they do not jeopardise
the robustness of the study, as they are
consistent with the regulatory and
market developments that are expected
to continue over the coming decades.
They are also consistent with the
principal objective of the study, which
is to make a case not for specific players
but for the European high-speed
network as a whole, and where investment
and favourable policy enable society to
reap the corresponding benefits.
“By demonstrating the major
Solidarity Transport Hub (CPK) in Poland is developing a 2000km network of mostly high-speed
economic and environmental benefits of
lines. The first line runs for 140km from Warsaw to Łódź via a new airport. Photo: CPK
a European high-speed rail network, the
study will underpin the Sustainable and masterplan for its development and answer to reaching the COP targets for
Smart Mobility Strategy and its have called on the European Commission passenger transport, as enshrined in the
ambitious objective to double traffic on and member states to implement a European Commission’s Smart and
high-speed rail by 2030, and to triple it coordinated implementation Sustainable Mobility Strategy. While
by 2050,” says Unife director general, programme “with adequate funding other modes will spend the next two
Mr Philippe Citroën. now and for the decades to come.” decades decarbonising, rail will
With the case now made for a true “The high-speed rail network is not continue building and fostering the
high-speed network for Europe, Unife, wishful thinking,” Borghini says. “But, future growth and integration of
CER, and AllRail and Unife want a together with ongoing investment, rail’s Europe.” IRJ

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IRJ March 2023 35
 High-speed | research
Enhancing high-speed train aerodynamics
The aerodynamic forces generated by trains travelling at high speed can result in car body vibration, snow
build-up on bogies and flying ballast, as well as pressure waves in tunnels. Sanetoshi Saito* describes recent
research in this field at Japan’s Railway Technical Research Institute.
RTRI is using a model train and crushed walnut shells to investigate snow build-up on bogies.
A
ERODYNAMIC phenomena are
important factors that directly
affect the stability and ride
comfort of rolling stock operating on
the railway. These can include strong
winds overturning trains, air resistance,
vehicle vibration caused by fluctuating
aerodynamic force, fluctuation in
pantograph lift force, and the build-up
of snow on bogies.
At the lineside, aerodynamic phenomena
include pressure fluctuation, drafts
caused by passing trains and air currents
causing ballast to be dislodged. The
noise and pressure waves generated in
tunnels which affect the lineside
environment are also caused by
aerodynamic phenomena.
As a function of train speed, these
phenomena are more significant in
high-speed operations, and as the world’s
high-speed network grows it becomes
ever more important to resolve the issues
they cause. Japan’s Railway Technical
Research Institute (RTRI) is performing
research to predict and investigate these
phenomena and to develop methods to
mitigate them, using numerical
simulations, experiments using models
and field tests.
When a train’s speed increases, air
resistance rapidly increases, and this is
the dominant factor causing running
resistance. It is therefore necessary to
limit air resistance in order to reduce
energy consumption. As high-speed
trains such as the Shinkansen in Japan
are long and have streamlined noses
and rear ends, air resistance of the
36 IRJ March 2023
intermediate vehicles is now the most
important factor. Smoothing every part
of the intermediate vehicles is one way
to effectively reduce air resistance, and
recent builds of Shinkansen feature
coverings for bogie sides, couplings and
other parts of the train to reduce air
resistance and noise.
At RTRI, we recently conducted wind
tunnel tests to evaluate the impact on
air resistance of the recesses around
train windows and sliding passenger
doors. The results showed that the air
resistance of a sliding door was
approximately 20 times greater than
that of a window. Moreover, the results
also indicated that the air resistance of
an intermediate vehicle with four
sliding doors and 40 windows could be
reduced by about 2.6% by smoothing all
the recesses.
But high-speed trains can also make use
of air resistance, and RTRI has developed
an emergency braking system that uses
drag through means of aerodynamic
brakes. These thin and small devices are
distributed on the roof of the vehicle,
minimising the need to occupy interior
space while achieving sufficient
deceleration performance at high speeds.
Figure 1 shows the aerodynamic brake,
comprising two resistance plates, which
are each 65mm thick and weighing a
total of 36kg. They are mechanically
linked so that they open and close
simultaneously in opposite rotational
directions. When the brake is applied
when travelling in Direction A, the
braking device unlocks the two plates
so that they open slightly. The flow of
air over and around the train acts in
Direction B, so that a greater aerodynamic
force acts on Plate 1 than on Plate 2.
Since the two plates are mechanically
linked, this results in both plates
opening simultaneously by simply
using the greater air resistance of Plate
1 than Plate 2. The same applies in
reverse when the train is moving in the
opposite direction.
We have conducted wind tunnel tests
with a manufactured prototype to
confirm performance such as braking
force and operating time, and have also
confirmed that the resistance plates in
their retracted position did not have an
adverse impact on lineside noise. The
optimum layout for installing a set of
aerodynamic brakes on the train roof
has also been determined using wind
tunnel tests and numerical simulations.
Pressure waves
When a train moves at speed, a strong
air flow or train draft is induced. This
has a direct impact on passenger safety
at station platforms, and in tunnels can
also affect maintenance workers and
lineside equipment. In particular, the wake
left immediately after the passing of the
end car has a large impact on the
fluctuating aerodynamic force that
causes the end car to sway, while the
maximum velocity of air flow induced by
the passing train occurs in the wake area.
We are now conducting research on
this high-speed wake by means of
experiments using models and
numerical simulations. Numerical
simulations of the flow around the end
car have been conducted to investigate
pressure distribution on the surface of
the vehicle and the basic characteristics
of the train draft in open sections
(Figure 2). The pressure distribution
calculations approximately agreed with
the results of wind tunnel tests.
When the train nose enters and exits a
tunnel, a compression wave is generated,
or an expansion wave for the end car.
These compression and expansion
waves propagate in the tunnel at the
speed of sound, and they are reflected
at the portals of the tunnel and at the
head and rear of the train running in
the tunnel. Consequently, multiple

pressure waves travel back and forth in
the tunnel when a train passes through
it. Aerodynamic phenomena in tunnels
are complex because the movement of
the train not only generates draft but
also multiple pressure waves travelling
along the tunnel. As train draft and
pressure fluctuation act on the tunnel
equipment and lining, predicting their
magnitude is important when designing
the strength of tunnel equipment and
vehicle structure, and for ensuring
worker safety.
We have conducted experiments
using models to investigate tunnel
phenomena and numerical simulations
to estimate the magnitude of the forces
involved. The experiment needed to
simulate the relative movement of the
train model and the tunnel model.
While wind tunnel tests are commonly
used for resolving aerodynamic issues,
it is difficult to simulate the complex
phenomena that occur in tunnels at
high speed. We are therefore using a
moving model train rig to simulate the
relative movements and to investigate
aerodynamic phenomena in tunnels. At
present, we are investigating the
pressure acting on the hoods installed
on tunnel portals in order to mitigate
micro-pressure waves, as well as the
pressure acting on snow shelters
connecting adjacent tunnels.
The physical model can only simulate
Figure 2: Numerical simulation of flow around
a tail car.
IRJ March 2023 37
Figure 1: The aerodynamic braking device.
a single train running through a tunnel,
but the maximum pressure is generated
by two trains passing each other in a
double-track tunnel. Numerical simulations
are useful to model such a situation, so
we are developing such tools to predict
pressure variations while considering
how these are influenced by the shape
of the lead car.
Flying ballast and snow
The phenomenon of high-speed trains
disturbing the track ballast has a direct
impact on safety, as flying ballast might
not only come to rest on the track but also
on station platforms and the lineside.
The main causes are ice falling from
the train in winter and the draft caused
by motion under the train. Measures to
prevent ballast being disturbed on high-
speed lines in Japan include installing
ballast screens or nets to cover the
ballast surface.
When installing these ballast screens
or nets, it is necessary to prevent them
from being dislodged by the strong
currents of air produced by passing
trains or high winds. To investigate this
phenomenon by means of wind tunnel
tests, it is necessary to replicate the
situation in which ballast and retaining
equipment can be dislodged. We have
therefore developed a method that
allows both real ballast and full-scale
samples of the equipment to be tested.
This has enabled us to conduct basic
experiments to clarify the ballast-
scattering phenomenon, and can also be
used to determine how other objects
such as lineside equipment can be
dislodged by passing high-speed trains.
Snow disturbed by passing trains can
stick to the underside of the train and
the bogies, gradually accumulating into
clumps. When these clumps are
dislodged by rising temperatures,
vibration or impact when passing
through turnouts, the resulting
scattered ballast might damage rolling
stock, equipment or even houses at the
lineside. If the snow clumps get caught
in the gap between the rails of a
turnout, this might no longer be able to
function correctly. For this reason, RTRI
is developing a device to prevent snow
build-up on the bogie. Because snow
mostly accumulates on the bogie end
cover plates, this device controls air
flow inside the bogie to reduce the
amount of snow accumulating on the
cover plates.
To evaluate its effect, we are using a 1:11
scale model train with a maximum speed
of 100km/h. In this experiment, crushed
walnut shells, whose particle motion is
similar to that of snow, are used to
investigate the conditions of snow
build-up on the bogie and to determine
the specifications of the aerodynamic
device. Furthermore, a method for
numerical simulation of the process of
snow build-up was developed,
considering air flow, the movement of
flying snow particles and snow
build-up. These calculations involve a
two-way coupled analysis. Because the
theoretical principle of snow build-up
was not clear, wind tunnel tests were
conducted in which snow particles were
made to build up on a cube.
The results of the experiments using
models show that snow build-up is
determined by the flying velocity of
snow particles and their impact angles.
Based on this conclusion, an algorithm
to determine whether or not snow will
build up was developed. For snow
build-up on the bogie, the numerical
simulation was validated by the results
of wind tunnel tests using the model
bogie. We are continuing to develop
effective aerodynamic devices to
mitigate snow build-up through a
combination of experimental devices
and numerical simulations.
As we have seen, aerodynamic
phenomena can have a wide range of
potential impacts on the safety,
efficiency and comfort of high-speed
operations. As all these phenomena
become more pronounced as train
speed increases, they are of increasing
importance as operators around the
world look to further accelerate their
services. At RTRI, we hope to continue
our work to resolve these issues
through an effective combination of
model-based experiment, numerical
simulation and theoretical analysis. IRJ
* Dr Sanetoshi Saito is the director and
head of the Environmental Engineering
Division at the Railway Technical Research
Institute (RTRI), Japan.
 Climate resilience | flooding
Research seeks to inform flood prevention efforts
System dynamics modelling of green space can highlight potential risks to stations and surrounding areas
from flooding, as researchers from universities in India and Japan as well as Indian Railways* explain.
N
ATURAL disasters can interrupt
rail operations and the ability to
deliver punctual services.
Around the world, floods have
contributed nearly 85% of the damage
caused by natural disasters to transport
assets including rail infrastructure.
In India, flooding is the single most
damaging type of natural disaster, causing
direct economic damage to infrastructure
and huge indirect losses to the economy,
accounting for approximately 47% of all
natural disasters in the last 100 years.
Between 2005 and 2015, there were nearly
100 occurrences of flooding in the country.
The 2019 monsoon season was
particularly intense. India received the
highest seasonal rainfall for 25 years
and second highest September rainfall
in the last 90 years. The Mumbai region
was brought to a standstill with the
city’s low-lying areas turned into flood
zones. The loss of green space owing to
the increase of built-up land is a critical
contributor to frequent flooding in
Mumbai.
Land subsidence is a hazard that
causes gradual land settlement and
increases the size of low-lying areas,
producing flood risk and damage to
infrastructure as well as significant socio-
economic harm. A 2022 study revealed
38 IRJ March 2023
Indian Railways’ network endures prolonged flooding during
the monsoon season, jeopardising the operation of rail
services. Photo: Shutterstock/Arun Sambhu Mishra
subsidence rates exceeding 11cm/year in
areas near Indira Gandhi International
Airport in Delhi and 3cm/year in
Faridabad between 2014 and 2020.
Therefore it is important to study such
fast-changing deformations to mitigate
flood risk to transport infrastructure.
Land subsidence mainly occurs due to
groundwater depletion, and human
activities such as rapid urbanisation
further exacerbates the problem.
The urbanisation rate in India
increased to 35% in 2019 and is
projected to rise to 50% by 2050. This
urbanisation trend is also placing a
tremendous burden on existing
transport systems, resulting in a
growing need for additional sustainable
transport. The National Rail Plan
developed by the Ministry of Railways
has recommended the development of
new high-speed corridors such as the
Mumbai - Ahmedabad line. The
location of high-speed stations is
important for the success of the system as
they have the potential to attract economic
activities in surrounding Transit-Oriented
Development (TOD) zones.
But the development of these TOD
zones should be undertaken in a
sustainable manner as they alter land-
use management and result in the
removal of urban green spaces, which
leads to problems such as the reduction
in groundwater recharge causing
increased surface runoff and flooding.
This results in an increased risk to rail
infrastructure and the TOD zones
themselves.
In this study, risk is defined using UN
Office for Disaster Risk Reduction
(UNDRR) terminology, R = f (H, E, V),
which is a function of hazard, exposure,
and vulnerability. Hazard is the
probability and severity of an event,
exposure is the assets subject to the
hazard, and vulnerability is the
susceptibility of assets to suffer damage
under a hazard of given severity.
This study uses Sentinel-1 satellite
spatio-temporal data using the InSAR
technique in the Sentinel Application
Platform (Snap) toolbox, developed by
European Space Agency (ESA). This
was used to analyse land subsidence
hazards in the coastal city of Virar, part
of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region
(MMR) and the location of a station on
the Mumbai - Ahmedabad high-speed
corridor.
The identified land subsidence areas
are then combined with flood hazard
maps to obtain a comprehensive picture
of exposure in Virar. Most of the global
studies lack focus on local
compounding vulnerability factors, but
this study analyses local environmental
vulnerability especially in the Virar
TOD zone.
The results are presented utilising
synthesised implementation of the
Quantum Geographic Information
System (QGIS) and Google Earth
Engine (GEE) JavaScript API. After risk
identification, system dynamics
modelling is undertaken to understand
the interlinkages of various contributing
factors through causal loop diagrams,
which express risk to the railway
system in a qualitative manner.
In this way, a flood risk assessment
strategy with potential for global
application can be formulated to inform
decision-making for urban development
in TOD zones.
Datasets and methodology
The datasets used in the study are:
Study Area: Virar, with a focus on the
TOD zones around the planned high-
speed station.
Landsat-7 Data: Data for 2020 on
ETM+ as available on the GEE Data
Catalogue derived from the dataset
provided by the American National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), which is used
to produce the following NDVI
composites vide equation. NDVI is a
measure of the amount and vigour of
vegetation on the land surfaces
determined using satellite imagery. On
removing cloud contamination from a
series of images over a period of time,
NDVI spatial composites are developed
to distinguish green vegetation more
easily from bare vegetation. The spatial
resolution is 30m.
The Normalised Difference Vegetation
Figure 1: Sentinel-1 SLC Data
of the study area.
IRJ March 2023 39
Index (NDVI) is a dimensionless index to
estimate the greenness of an area of
land utilising visible and near-infrared
reflectance of vegetation cover. The
threshold assumed in the study is 0.5-
0.75. The requirement of 1ha of green
space satisfying the standard of 10m2
per capita is assumed in the study.
Sentinel-1 Data: Full temporal extent
of the Sentinel-1 satellite data, S1A,
between 2017 and 2019 (coinciding with
the monsoon season in 2019) was
acquired in IW swath mode. The data is
acquired with a 250km swath at 5m x
20m spatial resolution (single look).
Sentinel-1 Single Look Complex (SLC)
datasets were downloaded from the
Alaska SAR facility as shown Figure 1.
Coordinates: The coordinates of the
station were obtained from personal
communication and converted from
UTM coordinates to WGS84 coordinates.
Population Data: the population
count and its spatial distribution for
Virar was obtained from the Socioeconomic
Data and Applications Centre hosted by
CIESIN at Columbia University.
Population data is assigned in GeoTiff
file format with spatial resolution of 30
arc-seconds (~1km at the equator).
For the study, land subsidence is first
analysed using Sentinel-1 SLC datasets
to perform interferometry utilising the
Sentinel Application Platform. This includes:
• co-registration to exploit the phase
difference of the acquisitions
• interferogram generation by cross-
multiplying the reference image with
the complex conjugate of the secondary
image and coherence estimation (areas
of high coherence appear bright)
• a Goldstein phase filtering to the
TOPS deburst image to enhance the
signal-to-noise ratio of the image by
enhancing the quality of the fringes in
the interferogram
• phase unwrapping to relate
interferometric phase to topographic
height
• phase to displacement for converting
the radian units in the previous step into
surface changes along the line-of-sight
(LOS) in metres and terrain correction
to geocode the image by correcting SAR
geometric distortions and
• exporting the geocoded product as
KMZ (for viewing in Google Earth) and
GeoTiff files (for further analysis in GIS).
Green spaces larger than 1ha within
the TOD zone, defined as a 2.5km
radius around the station, were
analysed using NDVI composites from
Landsat-7 data. The images are then
analysed for green space per capita
utilising the population count.
The GIS analysis is then carried out
by combining the land subsidence
hazard with flood hazard maps to
ascertain how exposed the TOD zones
around the station are.
The risk of urban environmental
vulnerability, mapped through green
space per capita, is then analysed for the
TOD zone exposed to flood hazard.
In the final step, a system dynamics
mathematical modelling technique is
employed to frame and understand the
connection between various contributing
factors and their interactions through
causal loop diagrams to express risk for
the railway system including causal
tracings. The modelling is done on
Vensim industrial strength simulation
software using a declarative
programming paradigm.
Results and conclusions
The land subsidence map developed
through InSAR analysis shows that
Virar has subsided by more than 70mm
between 2017 and 2019. Similar results
are found in a 2021 study.
Further risk analysis using UNDRR
risk assessment for the TOD zone is
carried out after InSAR analysis, and
the results show that although the flood
hazard severity is low for the exposed
areas, the flood hazard following
subsidence is moderate, and it is
important to understand that areas
prone to extreme and high subsidence
will be prone to flooding in the future.
The environmental vulnerability is then
assessed in the TOD zone on GEE and is
found to be 1.68m² per capita which is
below green-space standards of 10m² per
capita.
Both the vulnerability and hazard are
reclassified and combined using a
multiplicative matrix approach to have a
unique product, as shown in the Hazard
 Climate resilience | flooding
and Vulnerability Assessment (HVRA)
matrix in Figure 2. This shows high
flood risks with isolated low flood risk in
areas with standard green space in the
TOD zone around the Virar station.
System dynamics modelling is
undertaken to identify variables through
a Group Model Building approach by
the authors and the polarity of variables
is marked regarding the impact of
preceding variables.
The system dynamics model shows
that causal loops for flood risk in TOD
zones identifies causal variables with
polarity. The system dynamics approach
through identification of causal variables
of flood risk helps to understanding risk,
which is the key to business continuity
planning. By working upon causal
variables through joint coordination of Figure 2: Risk analysis of Virar city (created by the author)
urban and transport planning,
conservation and improvement of green reduce flood risk in the TOD zones
* Dheeraj Joshi and Shikha Saini are with the
space can be undertaken. This will help around stations in existing and future
University of Tokyo and Indian Railways; Alok
to prevent surface runoff and avoid the high-speed corridors, and risk to
Kansal, Naresh Lalwani and Manjul Mathur are
risk of urban flooding, while the conventional railways and metro
with Indian Railways; Ram Avtar is with
regulated surface runoff can help to systems. Such disaster-resilient
Hokkaido University, Japan; Prashant Mishra is
recharge groundwater to prevent infrastructure planning should be
with the High Speed Rail Innovation Centre,
ground subsidence triggered by incorporated in the Gatishakti National
India; and Vivek Joshi, Chandi Prasad Nanda,
overexploitation of aquifers beneath Master Plan for the reliable and
and Venkateshwarlu Chintala are with the
urban sites. sustainable development of railway
National Rail & Transportation Institute, India.
This integrated land use planning can infrastructure in India. IRJ

Rendezvous
March 2023
28-30—Lille, France
SIFER Exhibition
8 Mack Brooks, St Albans,
Britain.
www.sifer-expo.com
April 2023
25-27—Stockholm, Sweden
Train & Rail Conference &
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May 2023
8-11—Chicago, USA
International Wheelset Congress
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8 Terrapinn, Dubai, UAE
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31-Jun 1—Cologne, Germany
The Rise of IoT & Big Data in Rail
Conference
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8 UITP, Brussels, Belgium.
https://uitpsummit.org
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events/future-meetings/
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RailLog Korea
8 Messe Frankfurt, Seoul, Korea.
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frankfurt.com
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Exhibition
8 HYVE, Istanbul, Turkey.
https://eurasiarail.eu/Home
27—London, Britain
Rail Station Development and
Regeneration Conference
8 Waterfront, London, Britain.
https://waterfront.eventscase.co
m/EN/station2023
27-28—Johannesburg, South Africa
Africa Rail
8Terrapinn, Johannesburg,
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exhibition/africa-rail/index.stm
27-29—London, Britain
Rolling Stock Maintenance &
Depot Optimisation Europe
8 LBCG, London, Britain.
www.rolling-stock-maintenance.
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July 2023
6—Derby, Britain
Rolling Stock Networking
8 Rail Partners, London, Britain.
www.rsnevents.co.uk/
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28-31—Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
IHHA Conference
8 IHHA, Virginia, Brazil.
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September 2023
5-6—Berlin, Germany
8th Railway Forum
8IPM, Hannover, Germany.
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TRAKO Railway Fair
8 MTGSA, Gdansk, Poland.
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COMPRAIL
8 WASET, Paris, France.
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engineering-conference-in-
september-2023-in-london
October 2023
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8 Railway Interchange,
Indianapolis, USA.
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NEW: Expo Ferroviaria Exhibition
8 Mack Brooks, St Albans,
Britain.
www.expoferroviaria.com

40 IRJ xxxxx 2016 IRJ March 2023

 Contacts | editorial Fresh faces
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IRJ March 2023 41
 The last word | Carlo Borghini
European rail research leader bows out
Carlo Borghini reflects on his seven years as executive director of the Shift2Rail
and Europe’s Rail joint research undertakings, speaking to Kevin Smith in Brussels.
M R Carlo Borghini
stepped down from his
role as executive director of
the Europe’s Rail joint research
undertaking on March 1.
Borghini was appointed in
February 2016 in the early days
of Shift2Rail, guiding the work
of Europe’s first cross-industry
railway research programme
as well as the transition to its
successor, Europe’s Rail,
which formally started work
in January.
Borghini leaves Europe’s
Rail in rude health. There are
26 founding members, including
the European Union, covering
around 80% of the European
industry, which began work
on six flagship projects within
the Innovation Pillar in January.
There is also a Deployment
Group, and the System Pillar,
which aims to define the
functional system architecture
of the future European railway
that the new technologies and
processes will deliver.
More than 200 people drawn
from the members of the
System Pillar Consortium are
working on this element for
the next five years. Each person
dedicates a third of their time
to Europe’s Rail. Crucially,
Borghini says they are
influential people within their
respective organisations,
working not in research and
innovation, but in systems,
commercial, or operations
departments with the authority
to make decisions that will
accelerate deployment of new
technologies and working
practices. There is also support
from the very top of these
organisations for the
programme’s objectives.
“The commitment from the
CEOs comes because they
have many expectations of the
current programme to produce
things that will help them to
improve the results of their
own companies,” Borghini
says. “This is why the six
flagship projects have a deadline
of 2026. Because we want to
show that it is coming.”
This culture of cross-
42 IRJ March 2023
industry collaboration is in
stark contrast with the situation
when Borghini was appointed
in 2016. Borghini was an
outsider, coming to rail from
the aviation industry, and he
admits there was tension in
the early days. He says there
was a perception of rail as a
strong and professional but
closed community with a long
history, which he says to a
certain extent was limiting its
capacity to step outside of
established know-how to look
at how it might improve the
workings of the overall system.
Rail is regularly labelled as a
slow innovator. However,
Borghini says he quickly
“
If you introduce a piece of new
technology inside this very complex
system, and it remains at the local level,
you don’t see the benefits. Carlo Borghini
found that this was not
entirely the case. “The problem
was that there was a piecemeal
approach to innovation and
adoption of new technologies,
so it was not visible,” he says.
“If you introduce a piece of
new technology inside this
very complex system, and it
remains at the local level, you
don’t see the benefits.”
He also found that a largely
national rather than cross-
industry or European approach
was taken to innovation with a
lack of integration within the
programme.
“The major change started
to happen once we started to
go in depth inside the system
to start to look at it,” he says.
“Clearly, collaboration with
the European Union Agency
for Railways (ERA), and the
European Commission (EC)
has been fundamental because
research and innovation is not
capable of doing this by itself.
“We realised that we don’t
do research and innovation
only because we want to
explore new ideas, but to
really push the boundaries
and go beyond the regulatory
framework, discussing with
the commission and ERA about
how the framework can evolve.”
For example, work on ERTMS
Level 3, including moving
block and ATO, within
Shift2Rail’s Innovation Project
(IP) 2 evolved to include work
on IP5, which was focused on
freight, and eventually work
on another project outside of
Shift2Rail. Equally, the Digital
Automatic Coupler (DAC),
while solving safety and
resourcing issues by eliminating
the need for the manual
coupling of freight wagons, is
“an enabler with potential to
fundamentally change the freight
business,” Borghini says.
Among the improvements at
Europe’s Rail compared with
Shift2Rail, which with strong
industry representation was
technology-led, is the greater
involvement of operators and
infrastructure managers.
Borghini says this improves
the prospects for deploying
new technology and getting
better value for the taxpayers’
money that has funded its
development.
However, more work is still
needed. For example, Borghini
says priority should be given
to shifting from “a deployment
patchwork to consistent,
coherent European deployment”
where national plans align.
Equally, there needs to be
greater adoption of automated
operation and a change from
an industry that updates by
upgrading its hardware.
“I hope that in the future, if
they need to evolve they will
upgrade the software,” he says.
The high regard in which
Borghini is held by his peers
was reflected in a special
presentation to mark his
departure during the European
Railway Award ceremony held
in Brussels on January 31. Mr
Philippe Citroën, director
general of the European Rail
Industry Association (Unife),
described Borghini as a true
ambassador for the rail sector
and praised his work to bring
once disparate parts of the
industry together under the
shared umbrella of railway
research and innovation.
Borghini is set to become
assistant secretary general of
Nato, one of eight, with
responsibility for the executive
management portfolio including
the Nato 2030 reform
programme. He is clear that
his successor at Europe’s Rail
must have their own style but
that the role will demand that
they continue to be an
ambassador for rail. Appointing
his successor will take around
a year and Borghini expects
that it will be a much sought-
after position.
Borghini says that he shares
his colleagues’ passion for the
rail sector. While not an
engineer, he was keen to learn
about and experience the
railway system, to understand
its strengths and the weaknesses
that the European research
programme aims to address. “I
think they widely accepted me
and welcomed me because I
showed passion for what the
sector is doing,” he says.
Indeed, Borghini has always
been an honest and frank
contributor to industry debate,
and it is this enthusiasm that
the sector will miss. IRJ
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