The background
These changes in top management of the FSI Group come as a result of the resignation, which had been brewing for some time, of the previous board, caused mainly by the differing opinions on how to put 40% of the 49 JANUARY 2016 FS GROUP Railways capital onto the stock exchange. Differences that threatened to slow down a course of action which the
Government, under Matteo Renzi, is actually seeking to accelerate but which, objectively speaking, is very complicated and something no-one has done to date in Europe. There are numerous underlying knots which need untangling: is the network to stay inside or outside the scope of privatization? And the main stations? Is Trenitalia on its own appealing to the market? High-speed generates profits but what happens in regional transport where there are problems with certain regions which fail to pay within the times laid down in the service contracts? Former Chairman, Marcello Messori, was thinking in terms of a preliminary reorganization of the Group, separating the companies to be put up for privatization from those which should remain 100% state-owned. The CEO, Michele Elia, had different ideas. But it has to be said that not even the Government, up to the meeting of the Council of Ministers
on 23rd November, had given a formal go ahead to the partial privatization process with a definition of how the stake held by the Ministry of Economy and Finance in the FSI capital should be partially sold. The new BoD and Mr. Mazzoncini in particular, must now respond to the Government’s request to complete this process.
by Franco Tanel - Photo by FS Italiane
]]>by Franco Tanel
]]>What about your core business? What is your specialization?
The company has the widest range of solutions in the market – from high-speed trains to metros and tramways – and associated maintenance, modernization, infrastructure and signalling solutions. Alstom is a world leader in integrated railway systems.
Which are your recent main works?
In the last year, we have had significant awards such as the metros for Sydney, Kochi, Riyadh and Paris; signalling solutions for the Toronto greater area and Denmark; tram systems for Rio de Janeiro, Lusail and Sydney as well as suburban trains for South Africa.
Lately, we announced new big contracts such as the one in India for 800 e-locos, one of the biggest orders the company has ever known. Panama also entrusted us with their second line of metro and the extension of their first line. In France, we have won the Nice tramway with our more recent catenaryless solutions. We will also supply 8 high-speed trains in Italy and new Coradia regional trains in Germany.
by Anna Celenta – Photo© Alstom/ Arnaud Février
]]>A century old and not looking it. The Voghera Cyclical Maintenance Workshops (CMW) celebrated their centenary last year and today they still represent one of the most important works in the whole of Italy for the periodical overhauling of carriages which have covered 1,200,000 km. The craftsmanship methods of past decades have been replaced by modern procedures which require highly qualified and expert personnel. Electronics has now become essential even in this field, but there is still a lot of important mechanical work to be done. In fact it is in this area that the Voghera CMW is leading the field with its cryogenic shrink-fitting system for putting wheels onto axles, the first ever installed in a Trenitalia Workshop. We talked about this and how complex and intricate rolling stock maintenance is with plant manager Lorenzo Mancini, Engineer, who introduced us to a world, whose special features are not very well-known even amongst the workers, which is essential if rolling stock is to be returned into service for the safety and comfort of passengers.
Mr. Mancini, the Voghera Cyclical Maintenance Workshop is one of the most important workshops in the entire FSI Group. Before finding out how it is organized and what activities it carries out, can you give us an idea as to how rolling stock maintenance is organized within Trenitalia?
There are basically two types of Maintenance Workshops, First Level and Second Level ones. The works belong to Trenitalia, FSI Group’s transport company. The First Level or Routine Maintenance workshops answer to the maintenance works of the various Divisions, whereas the Second Level or Cyclical Maintenance Workshops (once called Major Repair Workshops) answer to the Technical Department. Today we have nine Second Level workshops: three are dedicated to the cyclical maintenance of carriages, three to locomotives and three to ETRs (electric trains) and light vehicles. Voghera is one of the three works specialized in carriage maintenance, along with the works in Florence and in Santa Maria La Bruna, near Naples. Locomotives are taken care of in Foligno, Verona and Rimini, which in particular takes care of diesel-powered vehicles, whereas in Vicenza, Bologna and Foggia maintenance is carried out on electric trains.
by Franco Tanel – photo F.T.
]]>The Interview with Mr. Mario Castaldo, Engineer and director of Trenitalia’s Cargo Division, shows us a very important business as the freight transport on rail and the future of the Italian company headed up by the FS Italiane Group, strongly projected towards Europe, but unfortunately not enough valued in Italy.
The Special shows how the FS Italiane Group is giving new value to areas and facilities no longer needed for rail transport from Turin to Rome. Mr. Carlo De Vito, Engineering and Sistemi Urbani’s CEO (a company 100% controlled by its parent company, Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane) speaks about this from page 58 to page 60.
Together with CIFI – pages 9-50 – this month we analyze some interesting technical aspects: Science – a system of model: forecast of passengers demand on HS rail services; Economy – The new high speed railway station of Bologna; Skill – Unified European Carriages: 50 years of State-of-the-art hauled.
Last but not least with our News you will travel around the word to discover how the rail universe is going on from a technological and strategical point of view but also to we give a look to projects and collaborations between authorities and private companies.
All we can to do is to wish you a good reading and happy holidays… See you on January 2016!
Anna Celenta
]]>The European rail freight sector has undergone an authentic revolution in the past few decades, with market liberalization, the radical changes of the globalized economy, the delocalization of production, and not least the challenge of environmental sustainability. A change that also Trenitalia Cargo, the freight division of the transport operator headed up by the FS Italiane Group, has faced by reinventing itself, struggling against the competition of a road haulage sector that is often unhampered by rules, and contending with numerous new and aggressive private rail companies. On the eve of an overall reorganization of the freight sector, we met with Ing. Mario Castaldo, director of Trenitalia’s Cargo Division, with whom we analyzed the present and the future of the Italian company, strongly projected towards Europe.
Ing. Castaldo, can you give us a picture of what Trenitalia Cargo is, first of all?
Today it’s a division of Trenitalia, the company of the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane group that deals with transport activities. So we at Trenitalia Cargo concern ourselves with freight transport and the commercialization of freight services. Let me say right away, though, that in the industrial plan that is being mapped out, which takes account also of the foreseen privatization process of the FS Italiane Group, we are creating a structure that is broadened to the whole freight and logistics sector, which will be placed outside of Trenitalia and directly under the holding company. We have given ourselves the goal of the end of 2016, but probably already in the first half of the year we will create a newco that will take in the Trenitalia’s Cargo Division, FS Logistica with its subsidiaries, and the other companies that are headed up by Trenitalia but are functionally under the Cargo Division, which are TX Logistik and Trenitalia Logistic France. We want to be a structure that develops transport and logistics services at European level, maintaining its core business in rail haulage but integrating it with a set of services that are increasingly demanded by customers.
by Franco Tanel – Photo FS Italiane
]]>It’s hard even to imagine an area of nearly five million square metres of railway land and buildings no longer needed for transport. But this is the extent of the holdings that FS Sistemi Urbani, a company 100% controlled by its parent company, Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, is making available to the market for urban transformation and real estate development projects. These assets are extremely valuable, also because, in the majority of cases, they are centrally located in big and medium-sized cities – including Milan, Turin, Rome and Naples, to cite just a few – and their valorization, due to the size of the interventions, also impacts the future development of the cities themselves. FS Sistemi Urbani thus plays a vital role in the urban reorganization of major Italian cities and at the same time represents an important resource for the FSI Group in economic terms.
But FS Sistemi Urbani doesn’t limit itself just to this important role: through its subsidiary Metropark it is also engaged in the building and management of car parks and other transport-related activities, not just those involving railways. We talked about them with Sistemi Urbani’s CEO, Ing. Carlo De Vito, who welcomed us in his office on the top floor of the FSI Group’s building in Piazza della Croce Rossa in Rome. The windows of the offices afford a unique panorama over the whole capital, nearly a 360-degree view thanks to the height of the building and its location at the city’s highest point. An almost symbolic position for someone who deals with areas that can be completely taken in only from a bird’s-eye view and uses satellite maps of the territory as an everyday tool.
by Franco Tanel
]]>Rome. Mr. Demetrio Morabito welcomes us in his office looking onto the Tiber. It’s the 25th September 2015 and we are in the capital of Italy, at the headquarters of the Italian branch of the international group SYSTRA, Systra-Sotecni Spa, of which Morabito has been Managing Director since 2000, thanks to his many years’ experience in the field of transport infrastructures, as Technical Manager of the prestigious Italian construction company Astaldi SpA. Before coming to work for Systra Group, Demetrio Morabito took part, in a series of management positions, in the construction of prestigious engineering works in Italy, including the Rome-Naples High Speed railway line, the Jonica highway, the metro in Naples and the design and modelling of the tender of the Bridge over the Strait of Messina. He has also been involved in many prestigious projects abroad, such as the Caracas-Cua railway line in Venezuela, the Bucharest-Costanta railway line in Romania, the Plodvid-Svilengrad line in Bulgaria and the Warsaw metro. Such an impressive curriculum has justly earned him his position in an international-level company with numerous projects to its name both in Italy and abroad. With him, Railway Engineering has specifically taken a close look at a project that is an absolute first for Italy: the Turin Metro, the first to be fully automatic and driverless, thanks to the VAL system.
by Anna Celenta
]]>According to an article published on https://www.credit-suisse.com China is racing against the rest of the world with high-speed trains, with an annual market volume of more than EUR 12 billion on the line. In just ten years, the Chinese have managed to build a high-speed network that is now more than 10,000 km long – the longest high-speed route in the world. It connects Beijing with Guangzhou. The train travels 2,300 km in less than 10 hours, meaning a speed of 300 km/h. The project was stalled due to a massive bribery affair, and in 2013 the former railway minister Liu Zhijun was given a suspended death sentence. However, it now seems that the Chinese are ready to work on foreign expansion as the domestic market is soon to be saturated. They are relying on their own technology to do so. While they had agreed on patents with Western train manufacturers for any foreign projects, these are gradually expiring. After China, the market leaders are Japan with 17% (mainly Hitachi, Kawasaki, and Mitsubishi), France’s Alstom with 12%, and Germany’s Siemens with 6%. Among the other providers (17%) are Canada’s Bombardier and Spain’s Talgo. SCI Verkehr states that about 90% of the approximately 3,200 trains in operation around the world are located in the seven largest markets: China, France, Japan, the UK, Germany, Spain, and Italy (data source: www.credit-suisse.com). The data published by Credit Suisse is backed up by the words of the CEO of an international giant in the world of general transport, railways in particular: Bombardier. Luigi Corradi, engineer, Chairman and CEO of Bombardier Transportation Italy, one of our main interlocutors in this market analysis, says: “Asian manufacturers, which initially saw a saturation in production capacity in their own market, having acquired levels of technological knowledge on a par with Europe, can today see important outlets for their business on the international market and consequently they are set to become competitors (with an increasingly higher potential) on all the opportunities concerning high speed. I think it is plain for all to see that their commercial strategy is particularly aggressive in emerging markets”. Corradi’s opinion is supported by Luigi Musso, Main Line Product Director Alstom Transport, the other main interlocutor of this market research: “In Japan, high speed started in 1964 and since then it has continued to expand. In Asia, after deployment in South Korea and Taiwan, the high speed network has significantly expanded in China. Russia is now assessing to build new dedicated lines, starting from Moscow-Kazan, after the success of the already introduced high speed connections”.
by Anna Celenta
Photo: Frecciarossa Bombardier – AnsaldoBreda
]]>Today Tunisia is without doubt one of the most modern and reliable countries in Africa, also for investors from all over the world. The democratic transition, following the Arab Spring which began in Tunisia, with the adherence to pledges made and the consolidation of the achievements attained (in particular modernity, economic openness, the priority given to direct foreign investments), has allowed Tunisia to hold its position as economic leader in terms of competitiveness in Africa and on the southern shores of the Mediterranean and to remain the primary industrial supplier to Europe in the Mediterranean area. Today 48% of the population is under 25 years of age: Tunisia is a young country, but above all a country rich in skilled and competitive labour. Infrastructures are modern and their development is in full swing. The Tunisian rail network is also amongst the most developed of all the North African countries facing onto the Mediterranean. Run by the SNCFT, the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Tunisiens, founded on 27 December 1956, it is divided into two railway systems with two different track gauges – inherited from its 150 years of history. Consequently today, SNCFT manages 471 km of 1,435 mm standard gauge network in the north and 1,688 km of metre gauge network in the central and southern parts of the country. Only 8 km of track are double gauge. In all, the network covers 2,167 km (mainly diesel traction) and develops a significant amount of both freight and passenger traffic. The maximum permitted speed is 130 km/h on the metre gauge lines and 140 km/h on the standard gauge lines, with a maximum axle load of 16 and 20 tons/axle respectively. Approximately 250 trains are timetabled to run each day, 160 of which are passenger trains serving the metropolitan area of Tunis, 63 are long-distance trains and 25 are for freight services. In terms of ridership, approximately 34.5 million passengers/year are carried on the Tunis metropolitan area services and 5.5 million on the long-distance routes. In the freight sector, at over 8 million tons/year, the phosphates extracted from the country’s important mines definitely represent the biggest share to which a further 3 million tons of other freight must be added. These figures illustrate a network which on the whole is in good health and which can count on rolling stock for the most part modern and adequate.
by Franco Tanel
Photo: Red_Lizard_lineBy Dennis Jarvis – Wikimedia Commons
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There are 43 pairs of connections a day, running from between 5:00 am and 9:00 pm, providing services to basically all the main locations not served by the high-speed network. We spoke to Adriano Scapati, Engineer, Trenitalia’s Frecciabianca Brand Manager.
Mr. Scapati, Frecciabianca services operate alongside the Frecciargento and Frecciarossa trains in offering top quality connections between major cities. What are the specific characteristics of the services offered by Frecciabianca? What is the typical customer target?
Frecciabianca provides rail links between large and mediumsized cities guaranteeing, for all those places not served by the high-speed network, easy and quality links with the main high-speed stations. As a brand, we were established together with the other Freccia rail services in April 2009, although Frecciabianca services were only presented to rail users in June 2011, since then we have kept in line with the standards provided by this type of offer, such as on board services, punctuality and technical parameters.
by Franco Tanel
]]>Technology & Innovation lets you discover: “the methodologies for the hauled mass increase of freight trains in accordance with Fiche UIC 421” in “Science”.
Rail transport covers only a small share of European freight movements. In order to extend the market, breakthrough innovations seem to be needed, involving both technical and organizational changes, so we give a look to the “potentials of technological innovations” in our “Economy” section. Last but not least another deep technical description of Frecciarossa with the third article dedicated to the ETR 1000.
This month we travel to Tunisia: the “Focus On” shows you one of the highest developed and best-structured railway networks on the African continent, a strategic infrastructure serving the country’s economy, run by SNCFT (Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Tunisiens – Tunisian Railways).
The “Special” introduces the world of high-speed trains. A deep market analysis supported by the words of two important international giants and a roundup of the most recent productions offered by the main players in this sector. For the good result of this “Special” we have to thank in particular two companies such as Bombardier Transportation Italy in the person of Mr. Luigi Corradi, Chairman and CEO and Alstom with Mr. Luigi Musso, Main Line Product Director Alstom Transport. They both gave us precious information to support the market data.
Another important step in the renewing of our magazine is the introduction of new articles dedicated to different subjects such as the projects, production and ambitions of big and small firms of the rail world. That’s why I am really pleased to introduce the “company profile”. Our first meeting is with ITT Interconnect Solutions through an interview with the Market Director Rail and Power, Mr. Lorenzo Bonadeo.
Don’t forget to give a look to our News and Agenda sections where you can find the latest affairs around the world and the coming conferences and exhibition to mark on your personal agenda.
Have a nice trip!
by Anna Celenta
]]>Mr. Zurlo, what exactly is the BBT SE and what are its tasks?
BBT SE is a European company established in compliance with EU regulations which introduce this corporate format of “European Company” into the European legal system. The shareholders are the Italian and Austrian governments, via the companies which manage railway infrastructures in the two countries. So on the Italian side the shareholders are the shareholding company TFB (Tunnel Ferroviario del Brennero) while on the Austrian side we have ÖBB , in other words the Austrian railways. In Italy it was preferable to set up a specific company because, unlike in Austria, where the shareholder is only the Austrian government via ÖBB, in Italy the shareholders in BBT SE are not only the State Railways (FS) through RFI (87.01% of the shares) but also the Autonomous Provinces of Trento (5.48%) and Bolzano (6.37%) and the Province of Verona (1.14%). So it was necessary to set up a shareholding company which allows the four different Italian shareholders to bring in their own contribution in terms of know-how, resources and share capital totalling 10.4 million Euros. This corporate structure was established in 2004 when the two countries, by means of an Intergovernmental Agreement signed by the two Ministers of Infrastructure, decided to realize this project.
Franco Tanel
]]>Overseeing maintenance activities and all the problems related to rolling stock engineering is one of the key tasks in the management of any railway undertaking. It is a vast and complex area involving competences which may seem worlds apart but which are all equally important for optimizing production of the transport services provided. Trenitalia, a company of the Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, like all the big European railway undertakings, has created a special department within its organization which today goes by the name of the “Technical Department” and is specifically in charge of all these issues. It is run by Marco Caposciutti, Engineer, whom we met to find out more details on how it operates, what it does and how it is organized.
Mr. Caposciutti, what tasks are carried out by the Trenitalia Technical Department you run?
Basically the Technical Department has two types of task: the first is to be a transversal department for Trenitalia in relation to the three divisions which run the various services (the National and International Passengers Division, the Regional Passengers Division and the Cargo Division), for all those engineering problems concerning rolling stock. In other words, the technical specifications for characterizing rolling stock, all those aspects linked to maintenance schedules, rolling stock maintenance cycles, IT systems (again referring to rolling stock) as well as aspects concerning operating safety and the project management of rolling stock purchase or revamping orders. In brief, engineering, project management and all the issues linked to operating safety. This is the first part of our work: the second part concerns the cyclical maintenance of vehicles. The Technical Department has nine workshops which carry out cyclical maintenance. Around 2,700 people work in these workshops, whereas approximately 300 people are involved in the engineering and project management aspects.
Franco Tanel
]]>From the devastation of civil war, in just over 20 years Mozambique has become an example of the so-called African economic boom. The mining sector, especially with regard to coal but also aluminium and gold, plays a fundamental role in the country’s economic growth (which the International Monetary Fund estimates at 8% over the medium term). The Mozambican government has entered into agreements with leading mining and oil companies (large off-shore deposits have been identified) which include, in addition to mining concessions, also important investments in the area of infrastructure, especially rail and port facilities. Heavily damaged during the hostilities, the Mozambican rail network (around 3000 km long with a reduced gauge of 1067 mm) is at the centre of a challenging, complex plan for the reconstruction and relaunch of all the major lines. Victor Pedro Gomes, president of CFM, the state-owned company that manages rail and port infrastructure, recently underscored that Mozambique has recorded 25% growth in the rail sector and 22% in the port sector in recent months. The company’s operating income rose by 41% in 2014 from its 2013 level, reaching a figure of 75 million dollars. Antonio Ingles, Permanent Secretary of the Transport and Communications Ministry, has illustrated some of the government’s priorities for the sector: in the country’s north the main focus is naturally complete activation of the connection between the Moatize coal field and the port terminal of Nacala-a-Velha which runs through neighbouring Malawi and is known as the “Nacala Corridor”.
Franco Tanel
]]>We just have to wish you a good reading! Have a nice trip!
Anna Celenta
]]>Rail transport in Alto Adige enjoys a level of popularity that is markedly higher than in other Italian regions. The credit undoubtedly goes to a policy oriented toward support for public transport, although without “demonizing” private cars (in Bolzano, for example, convenient underground car parks have been built just five minutes from the very central Piazza Walter), and to a series of choices that have truly revolutionized the offered services. The first of these was undoubtedly the decision taken in 1999 to rebuild the Val Venosta railway and put it back in operation. A choice that at the time was looked upon with scepticism by a sizeable part of the population. The success of the “new” line, run directly by the Province and now transporting nearly 2 million passengers per year, has shown that a well-managed railway is a modern, efficient transport method and has been the catalyst for subsequent projects, upgrades strongly desired also on the italian State railways network and the decision to have a regional railway company to complement and round out the offer of Trenitalia. We talked about these issues with Joachim Dejaco, Director of STA, the company of Bolzano Province that deals with transport infrastructure
Mr. Dejaco, what exactly is STA and what role does it play in managing public transport in Bolzano Autonomous Province?
STA is an “in-house company” of Bolzano Province. In practice, we have the same tasks for the Province that RFI does for Italy at the national level: infrastructure manager. We’re responsible for the Val Venosta railway line, which extends for about 60 km from Merano to Bolzano and is owned by Bolzano Province. Today, though, thanks to the experience acquired in rebuilding this line, we also have the responsibility of managing a few rail projects together with RFI, where we as STA look after the civil works and RFI sees to the superstructure, signalling and electric traction.
by Franco Tanel
]]>by Franco Tanel
]]>Mr Gentile, let’s give our readers a quick overview of RFI’s activity today, starting with the Act of Concession between the Italian government and the FS Group and the Programme Contract that governs relations regarding investments.
In Ministerial Decree 138T of 31 October 2000 the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport identified Ferrovie dello Stato as the Manager of the national railway infrastructure. The Act of Concession has a 60-year duration starting from when the decree issue. The economic and financial aspects of the concession relationship between the Rail Infrastructure Manager and the state are governed by the “Programme Contract”. The Programme Contract between the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and the Concessionaire identifies the mutual obligations and governs the ways the state finances the maintenance and management of railway infrastructure and investments. Between 1991 and 2000, FS entered into three Programme Contracts with the State. The following year, Rete Ferroviaria Italiana was set up and assumed exclusive responsibility as sole Manager of the national railway infrastructure. In the ensuing years, RFI entered into the 2001-2005 Programme Contract and the 2007-2011 Contract. The Programme Contract was then split into separate acts: Services and Investments. Since 2012, in compliance with the Interdepartmental Committee for Economic Planning (CIPE) Decision No. 4/2012, both ordinary and extraordinary maintenance have been regulated by a distinct Services Programme Contract. The first of these was signed for the 2012-2014 period and was also aimed at managing safety, security and navigation activities (remember that RFI also provides “territorial continuity” with Sicily by means of its ships and daily ferry service across request, with Sardinia).
by Franco Tanel – photo FS Italiane
Have a nice business trip with Railway Engineering!
by Anna Celenta
]]>This cutting-edge application is going to have extremely important effects on future power management. Energy needs to be consumed intelligently and this system, which makes it possible to recover the huge amount of energy generated by braking trains is a prime example, one that is accompanied by a package of additional actions that Ferrovienord has already begun or is about to implement. The substation is just a few kilometres from Ferno-Lonate, a station built underground. We reach it in a hybrid car (with a thermal electric engine), confirming that actions to consume energy intelligently come in all kinds of forms. From outside, the building is identical to others of the same size (3.6 MW) but since May 2012 it has become an honest-to-goodness laboratory for testing this new installation “live”.
Mr. Barra Caracciolo, the satisfaction of you and your collaborators with this substation is obvious, and completely justified. There aren’t any like it, not just in Italy but not even in Europe and probably the entire world. And above all, it works. An idea that’s a winner. Tell us about how you got to this point and where you started out from.
Before going into the details I’d like to briefly run through the main characteristics of our network, which has an extension of about 320 km. It’s small compared to the national total, which is around 16,000 km, but it’s complex because we have everything. We have the “Brescia branch,” which is the line that goes from Brescia to Edolo, in the Alps, with diesel traction and single track, but also the “Milan branch” where the network is totally electrified at 3000V direct current, plus around Milan we have lines not just with double track but even quadruple track, like in the section from Milan to Saronno. The network is interconnected with RFI, the Italian Rail Network, and is interoperable. To give you an example, thanks to the connecting line built to Busto Arsizio, the Swiss TILO electric trains coming down from Ticino have an easy journey to Malpensa airport. Getting back to interconnections, the main one is at Milano Bovisa, with the “Passante” through line that enables trains to reach Milano Centrale via Milano Garibaldi. It’s thanks to these interconnections that the Malpensa Express trains connect Milano Centrale with Malpensa international airport.
Franco Tanel
]]>Even aid from international financial institutions has arrived in mere dribs and drabs (the Asian Development Bank, for example, ceased all business with the country for years, reopening the door only in 2012). If truth be known, Myanmar, the state covering the largest surface area (676,577 km²) in the Mekong River region, has massive potential, also as a corridor for connecting Southeast Asian countries to India and Pakistan and as a possible means of access to the Bay of Bengal for the economic giant, China. Now after decades of economic stagnation and scant investments in infrastructures, the transport sector is very undersized compared to those of other member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The mean density of roads among ASEAN member states is 11 km per 1,000 inhabitants, whereas in Myanmar it stands at just 2 km per 1,000 inhabitants. If we take a look at the vehicle motorization index, in Thailand there are 370 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants, in Indonesia this figure stands at 250 and in Myanmar, just 18. Which is another reason why, at the end of the 1980s, the government focused on extending road and railway networks, above all in the most remote regions of the country. The recent political reforms, which in February 2011 led to the election of the first civilian president of the country since the military coup d’état in 1962, and removal of economic sanctions by the EU are encouraging the opening up of Myanmar to the world economy. This process is promoting the transfer of technology and knowledge also to the transport and railway sectors, where over the last few years numerous modernization projects have been conceived and got underway.
Franco Tanel
]]>Demand is concentrated in very few hours and, especially in metropolitan areas, trains all converge in a small number of stations and any tiny, unexpected occurrence risks putting the whole system out of joint. Today, passengers are not willing to forgive anything; they expect their journeys to be carried out with comfortable, punctual transport, and are ready to make their complaints heard on information media. Ever since Trenitalia, the company that manages transport, has operated as a “SpA” (stock corporation) within the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane Group (since 2000), it has been organized into three divisions: Long Distance Passengers, Regional Passengers and Cargo. The Regional Passenger Division guarantees mobility services in the metropolitan, regional and interregional context and supplies over 190 million trains/km per year. It has started up a thorough renewal of its vehicle fleet, with the purchase, within the space of a couple of years, of over 200 new trains and the revamping of more than 1200 carriages. This renewal operation also extends to a new livery and a new corporate image. The latest arrivals in the fleet are the ETR425, christened with the trade name “Jazz”, built by Alstom starting from the Coradia Meridian trains platform, and the ATR 220 from the Polish Pesa firm, which commuters will know by the name of “Swing”.
The engineer Orazio Iacono, previously Network Sales Manager of RFI (Rete Ferroviaria Italiana – Italian Railway Network) was appointed to head the Regional Passenger Division in November 2014. We asked him to tell us how this complex machine works and what plans have been launched to further improve the service offered daily to millions of Italians.
Mr. Iacono, managing the Trenitalia Regional Passenger Division is a heavy task. How many trains do you put on the tracks each day and how many passengers use them?
Every day 8500 trains provide commuter services on RFI lines and are therefore part of the regional business. These 8500 trains are used daily by our commuters, who number over 2,300,000. Local transport is the most important matter we are dealing with at the moment, both as the parent company, i.e. Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (Italian State Railways), and as Trenitalia, the railway company which heads this Division. We all think it is essential to tackle the subject of commuters in our country. This is what we are working on, with a set of initiatives concerning investments in the fleet, service contracts and also our organization. Added to this are some special projects regarding new services created for the customer.
Franco Tanel
]]>by Anna Celenta
]]>I say “these days”, because when the project has been completed, and the technical and human historical heritage made available to the whole country is readily useable, we feel sure that the Foundation will be recommended at an international level as a model for highlighting the value of a company’s history and, in the case of the Italian Railways, an important part of the country’s history. This is not rhetoric – the figures speak for themselves. The overall patrimony includes a library of over 50,000 volumes, over 500,000 pictures, thousands of which are on old photographic glass plates, 80,000 dossiers on railway line projects, 7,000 original technical drawings of locomotives and carriages and the National Railway Museum of Pietrarsa, created by restoring the very first railway workshops ever to open in Italy in 1840 by command of the Bourbons. But above all, it includes approximately 250 historical vehicles, including locomotives, railcars, carriages and wagons in perfect working order, which in 2014 alone were used to run over 100 historical trains journeys in different parts of Italy (all sold out). The Foundation was established thanks to the enthusiasm, and to a certain extent, the stubbornness of two people: former CEO of Gruppo FSI, Mauro Moretti (as of May last year CEO and General Manager of Finmeccanica) who came up with the idea and wanted to make it happen, and Luigi Cantamessa, a young engineer, but more importantly railway man, who now runs it. We met up with him in the premises, now almost finished, which the Foundation has taken up on the ground floor of Villa Patrizi, the historical seat of Gruppo FS Italiane in Rome, just a cock-stride from the Termini Railway Station.
Railway Engineering: Mr. Cantamessa, first of all can you tell us how the Foundation came about and what its aims are?
Luigi Cantamessa: I’ll start with the second part of your question. The Fondazione Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane aims to safeguard a huge historical and technical heritage which, in the best case scenario, risked going missing and in the worst case scenario, being stolen or destroyed completely. Once this has been done, it wants to publicize it, so that everyone, not just a handful of rail enthusiasts, can get to know about and value this heritage. This will involve different approaches which go from making the most of the libraries and the museum (for those interested in taking a closer look at the historical aspects), to publicizing the amazing patrimony of photographs and films, which tell the story of over 100 years’ of Italian history, and the circulation of our historical trains, our “ambassadors” wherever there is a railway line. Trains which we already use to offer “slow” tourism opportunities for everyone.
]]>A war which lasted until 1995 with a huge cost in terms of both human lives and extensive damage to the economic structures of the new nation, calculated by Europe Review to stand at around 37 billion dollars for infrastructures alone. Inevitably the first years after the war were dedicated mainly to restoring railway lines and services, putting off radical upgrading and modernization of the infrastructures until better times. The situation today is completely different. On 1 July 2013 Croatia became the 28th member state of the European Union and, although it has not yet adopted the euro and does not adhere to the Schengen Agreement (which abolishes border checks between member states), it is to all effects and purposes destined to play an important role on the EU scene. The road which Croatia had to follow to gain entry into the European Union began in 2003. Over the following years the EU, by means of the IPA (Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance), financed the reconstruction and development of the country which can now also count on other support tools, the Structural Funds which, for the sector concerning infrastructures, are mainly the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund. According to current forecasts, Croatia is expected to receive a total (consequently not only for infrastructure projects) of over 1 billion euros/year for the 2014-2020 period. It should also be mentioned that, in the context of European programming, a new funding instrument, called CEF (Connecting Europe Facility) has been introduced, the specific aim of which is to speed up the development of priority infrastructures in the fields of transport, energy and information technology. This instrument can be used to finance upgrading of the Croatian rail network.
Franco Tanel
]]>Franco Tanel
]]>Today ARST, the Azienda Regionale Sarda Trasporti (Sardinian Regional Transport Company), runs almost all of the island’s public transport system: rail transport (having incorporated the secondary narrow gauge network of the Ferrovie della Sardegna – Railways of Sardinia), urban and suburban road transport as well as the two fast tramway systems (in Cagliari and Sassari) which we talked about in detail in issue no. 27 of Railway Engineering.
In this issue we will be looking more specifically at the railway part of ARST’s activities and the very special experience offered by the Trenino Verde della Sardegna (the Little Green Train of Sardinia), a truly unique rail tourism service operating with historical vehicles. For this second article our interviewee is once again ARST General Manager, Carlo Poledrini (engineer).
Railway Engineering: Mr. Poledrini, ARST also manages the entire narrow gauge railway network in Sardinia. What lines are there and how many kilometres does the network cover in all?
Carlo Poledrini: Let me give you a brief historical outline to explain how ARST, which was established in 1971 to guarantee the continuity of public road transport (hard-hit by the boom in private car ownership), came to be running all of the island’s narrow gauge railway network. As well as the Ferrovie dello Stato, there was also a network of secondary railways operating in Sardinia which included the Ferrovie Complementari della Sardegna (Sardinia Complementary Railways), the Strade Ferrate Sarde (Sardinian Railroads) and the Ferrovie Meridionali Sarde (Southern Sardinian Railways). From a legal point of view, they were secondary railways “provisionally” managed by the Ministry, after the concessions to private individuals had expired. They connected, thanks to an extensive narrow gauge (950 mm) network, all the main towns on the island. Around 2005, the Regional Government decided it was also time to bring all rail transport which was not directly run by the Ferrovie dello Stato, under the direct control of the region. So, after quite a complicated procedure, government management of the Ferrovie della Sardegna was handed over to ARST, which in the meantime had become a joint-stock company (S.p.A.), on 16 June 2008, merging into the subsidiary company ARST Gestione FdS, a limited liability company 100% owned by ARST SpA, which in turn was wholly owned by the Sardinia Autonomous Region. Things continued to be organized in this way until 25 October 2010, when ARST Gestione FdS was incorporated into ARST. Now we run the services on the Monserrato (Cagliari)–Isili and the Macomer–Nuoro lines as well as the lines running from Sassari to Alghero, Sorso and Nulvi. Furthermore, we manage the Trenino Verde della Sardegna rail tourism services using both vintage railcars and historical steam trains. The overall network covers approximately 600 km.
Franco Tanel
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Ten is the number for InnoTrans 2014. Ten is the number of editions held, ten out of ten is the well-deserved score earned by this year’s trade fair which, between 23 – 26 September, brought rail sector operators from all over the world to Berlin. Before discussing market trends and the main innovations shown at the German exhibition, let’s take a look at some of this year’s figures. 2,758 exhibitors from 55 different countries, 61% of which from outside Germany, confirms the international vocation of this Trade Fair. Also the profile of professional visitors was a very global one, with 138,872 visitors from over 100 countries. The Berlin Expo Center, covering over 100,000 m², was completely full. The growth of InnoTrans is constant, with a 10% increase in exhibitors present at this year’s edition compared to the 2012 event.
The Berlin trade fair is also unique for the presentation of rail vehicles: 145 were on show this year amongst which Trenitalia’s very first ETR 1000 definitely stood out from the crowd. Overall 140 world firsts, in terms of products and vehicles, were presented over the four days of the trade fair. All of this highlights how the railway sector is, all over the world, one of those going through a period of great ferment and can look to the future, also in terms of work orders for both infrastructures and technological apparatus, not to mention rolling stock, with plausible optimism. In fact, the growth of the market for railway vehicles and relative infrastructures, has been constant over the last year, as shown by the World Rail Market Study presented at InnoTrans by UNIFE’S Director General, Philippe Citroën.
Today an annual growth rate of 4.3% is being recorded, a real level which is 1.5 % higher than was previously forecast. For the 2017-2019 period, statistics envisage an annual growth of 2.7 %. The study reveals that the highest rates of expansion will be recorded in the Asia and Pacific region (4%) and in North America (3.5%).For Latin America, UNIFE predicts an increase of 6% but also underlines that this is the area with the highest level of unmet demand. Special note should also be given to China, where the rail market is growing strongly and, according to the declarations made at InnoTrans by Chen Jianguo, Vice President of the China Association of Metros (CAM), is destined to grow further still. In fact, huge investments in the national rail network are planned: by 2020 a 6,100 km extension to the rail network is envisaged with a further 14,000 km being added by 2030. This expansion corresponds to an investment which by 2025 will reach 886 billion Euros. The trend, which is being recorded all over the world, towards growing urbanization, leads us to believe that the need to save energy while at the same time increasing the offer of public transport, alongside deregulation and liberalization of the sector, should guarantee stable rates of growth for the near future.
Franco Tanel
A success story covering three decades and destined to last for many years to come, Italferr is proof that competence and professionalism, together with inventiveness and the ability to dare, always looking beyond the limits of usual activities, are values which can make a company a reference point for the world. If the Italian high-speed network is held to be a world-class achievement, this is partly due to Italferr, thanks to whom in this sector there is now an industrial supply chain which obtains work orders all over the world. A piece of “Made in Italy” we can truly be proud of. We met up with Italferr’s CEO, Matteo Triglia, who gave us a summary of the last thirty years and told us about future aims.
Railway Engineering: Mr. Triglia, on 25 October 1984, Italferr was founded. Thirty years later it is the biggest Italian engineering company in the transport sector (and not only) and operates both in Italy and abroad. How would you sum up the last three decades?
Matteo Triglia: Without doubt the last three decades have given positive results. In an era such as today’s, characterized by an increasing fragmentation and discontinuity of values, Italferr represents a story of excellence, marked by a constant growth in human and professional values. In the 20th century, Einstein said: “Let’s not pretend that things will change if we keep doing the same things. For all crises bring progress.[...] It’s in crisis that inventiveness is born, as well as discoveries made and big strategies”. So, to sum up the last 30 years, I can definitely say that Italferr’s history is similar to that of other Italian excellences, achieving important results over time and courageously projecting itself towards the future with the ability to respond to increasingly more complex needs and demands, especially in the international market.
Franco Tanel
]]>Italferr was founded in 1984 to operate chiefly abroad, but from the mid-90s onwards it started following the most prestigious projects in Italy of the then Ente Ferrovie dello Stato, linking its name to the creation of the High Speed/High Capacity rail network that has revolutionised the country’s rail transport. The first contract outside of Italy dates to 1987 in Peru and concerned the planning of the metropolitan network of Lima. In thirty years of history, Italferr has been awarded public and private contracts from over 60 countries, and is considered one of the most authoritative railway engineering companies in the world. The economic results of Italferr have always been excellent too, distinguished by their plus sign, and today the company has an annual turnover of around 150 million euros and profits of around 10 million.
Italferr flourished in the wake of the great Italian engineering tradition that, in the 19th century, produced personalities like Luigi Negrelli, and in the 20th century Pier Luigi Nervi and Riccardo Morandi, to name but a few, and it has gained a great deal of experience in important infrastructural projects, obviously in the traditional railway and High Speed railway sectors, but also involving metropolitan and road transport systems.
The company’s activities range from design engineering, to work contracts, to works management and supervision, to the putting into service and testing of lines, stations, intermodal centres and distribution hubs, through to project management, organisational consulting, training and transfer of know-how.
By the end of the ‘90s, Italferr had become the first contracting authority in Italy. It played a key role in the most important investment acceleration process ever to take place in the railway sector in Italy, by planning and engineering most of the works identified by the so-called “Legge Obiettivo”, launched by the Government to speed up the large-scale works deemed to be strategic for the nation. With the construction of the Italian HS/HC system, the first section (Rome-Naples) of which was officially opened in 2005, Italferr gained experience of fundamental importance, widely acknowledged abroad, which placed it among the sector’s élite group of international top players. The line, in fact, is the first in the world managed by the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) level 2, without any other “reserve” system.
Franco Tanel
]]>Rome and Lazio represent one of the most strategic areas of the national rail network. In fact the main national connections on the north-south main line all head for the capital, for both historical-political reasons as well as due to the geographical layout of the country.
If to this we also add the regional traffic affecting Rome on a daily basis, with hundreds of thousands of people travelling between their homes and workplace or place of study, it is easy to understand the complexities facing and brilliantly dealt with by the relative RFI Maintenance and Operations Department. We let Mr. Massimo Iorani, engineer and manager of the RFI Maintenance and Operations Department for Lazio, tell us about it and he gave us a detailed insight into the organization of the structure he is responsible for.
Railway Engineering: Mr. Iorani, you are the head of an important RFI Maintenance and Operations Department. What area are you in charge of and what are your duties?
Massimo Iorani: The Rome Maintenance and Operations Department (DTP) covers over 1,200 km of line to which we must add 1,700 track devices. This infrastructure runs mainly in Lazio, extending out into Abruzzo, Tuscany and Campania. A DTP’s main task is to guarantee availability of the infrastructure based on commercial needs, in observance of the relative safety standards. To perform this task, the DTP has an organization made up of human resources, vehicles and skills which make it possible to carry out maintenance activities and regulate circulation. Being as the DTPs are territorial operational structures of the Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, they are also in charge of other important tasks, amongst which the 5 function of owner and executor (either directly or by providing assistance to other company departments and/or companies belonging to the Group) of works to develop the infrastructure for the purpose of increasing the commercial offer in terms of quantity and quality.
Franco Tanel
]]>Less than two months ago we all met up in Berlin for InnoTrans – the aim was to get an idea as to what the future holds for rail transport and its industrial supply chain. As always InnoTrans (this year at its tenth edition) proved to be an intense occasion, packed with events, the latest developments and discussions. The overall summary which we can make is that the sector is very much alive, full of prospects and that all over the world the railways are increasingly more at the centre of transport policies thanks to their higher level of environmental sustainability and their capacity to untangle the problem of mobility in large urban areas which are becoming more and more densely populated. The rolling stock and infrastructure market, according to analysts, is destined to grow at a rate of 2.7% between 2017 – 2019 with higher percentages of growth in Asia and North America. Technological innovation will have a fundamental role in this growth: the trains and railway lines of today and tomorrow will be very different from those of just 20 years ago.
The Italian rail sector is one of the leading players in this innovation. In fact AnsaldoBreda and Bombardier with Gruppo FSI chose InnoTrans for the unveiling of the very first ETR 1000, built for Trenitalia, which can reach speeds of up to 400 km/h. It should be underlined that the number of Italian companies exhibiting with their own stands at Berlin totalled 180, third in terms of numbers, out of all the countries taking part. In this edition of Railway Engineering, as well as talking about InnoTrans, we could not overlook a very important anniversary: Italferr, the engineering company belonging to Gruppo FSI, was 30 years old on 25 October. An historical achievement because over the last three decades Italferr has become one of the sector’s most important and authoritative companies in the world. We have dedicated two articles to this anniversary: an interview with the company’s CEO, Matteo Triglia and an article which covers the history of the company and looks back at its milestones and successes in Italy and abroad. Today Italferr has extended its activities to sectors which are not strictly “railway orientated” such as the contract they have recently been awarded to manage the works for Milan Expo 2015.
Then we continue our journey among RFI’s Maintenance and Operations Departments, discovering a complex and highly professional structure thanks to which the circulation of thousands of passenger and freight trains is guaranteed every day. This time we are focusing on the Maintenance and Operations Department for Lazio and consequently the huge railway hub in Rome, one of the most complex in the country. A well known saying says “All roads lead to Rome” which is one way of remembering that the heart of the country is its capital where all the most important decisions are made. In much the same way “all railways lead to Rome” because the network’s main hub lies in the capital. Even when it comes to the high-speed network, despite having a fundamental stronghold in Milan, the country’s economic capital, all its major connections converge on Rome. Thanks to an interview with Mr. Massimo Iorani, engineer and manager of the RFI Maintenance and Operations Department for Lazio, we have uncovered the organization of the structure he is responsible for and some interesting development projects.
To complete this edition we have the usual technical articles which are the result of our collaboration with the Italian College of Railway Engineers. We hope you enjoy your read.
Franco Tanel
]]>Railway Engineering: Honourable Minister, thank you very much for this meeting which allows us to accurately describe the terms of this large project for a standard gauge railway network in Uganda and the region as a whole.
John Byabagambi: I am very pleased you came to Uganda and asked to interview me. I hold the role of State Minister for Works and Transport but am also President of the Committee of Ministers for the Northern Corridor Integration Project and am therefore in charge of the railway projects which affect the countries involved, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and also South Sudan and Burundi.
]]>Railway Engineering: You are the Chairman of the “Comitato della Ferrovia del Renon” : what are the responsibilities and activities of the Board that you direct? Markus Untermarzoner: The Board is a committee of the Municipality of Renon. Our main responsibility is the preservation of the Renon Railway and all that this entails, including infrastructures, such as the stations, stops, rolling stock and all the historical routes. We do, of course, have our say on safety issues and on any choices to be made regarding the public transport service. The Board was founded in the 1970s to combat the idea – on the cards at that time – to permanently dismantle the railway and replace it with a bus service.
]]>Railway Engineering: Eng. Grassi, you head one of RFI’s most important Maintenance and Operations Departments. What is the area entrusted to you and what are your tasks?
Paolo Grassi: We operate the railway systems located more or less within the boundaries of Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta, along with a few bits of Liguria. The railway line in Valle d’Aosta is extremely limited, just 81 km of single-track line, non-electrified between Ivrea and Pré-Saint-Didier. In Piedmont, on the other hand, the network extends for around 1900 km, subdivided between 588 km of main lines, 1255 km of secondary lines and 85 km of hub lines, basically those relating to the Turin area.
]]>In this issue, however, we were also keen to sneak a glimpse at the past: our history is important and cannot be abandoned. On the transport front, it is not always easy to reconcile respect for history with the operating efficiency demanded of the modern world. But the Renon railway, a small network in the far north of Italy, has succeeded in this challenge. Beloved of the local populations and built in the stunning surroundings of the Dolomites over a century ago, it came very close to being demolished. But insightful historical preservation works carried out on its buildings and rolling stock, combined with exceptionally conscientious management, has transformed it into a small masterpiece. Despite still using its historical vehicles, it has not been turned into a museum railway and each day its passengers include not only commuters and students but also tourists and train lovers who flock from every corner of Europe to see it. A fitting tribute to history and to the far-sightedness of those who dared to choose non-conventional solutions to reconcile the need to preserve a historical heritage with that of providing an efficient daily public transport service.
Franco Tanel
]]>We have focused our attention in this first article on the birth of ARST and the creation of the Cagliari and Sassari fast tramways, and are meeting the ARST Director General, Carlo Poledrini, engineer. In the future we will describe the railway side of ARST, which is equally interesting, and the unique experience of the Sardinia Trenino Verde (Little Green Train), a really unique service for tourists using historic vehicles.
Railway Engineering: Mr. Poledrini, let’s start with ARST, the Sardinian Regional Transport Company: when was the company set up and what are its duties?
Carlo Poledrini: To give an overall picture of regional public transport in Sardinia and of the birth of ARST, we have to go back many years. We are obviously talking about road transport and the rail transport that did not belong to the Ferrovie dello Stato (formerly the Italian State Railways) in past decades and to the Gruppo FSI (currently the Italian State Railways Group) today.
]]>There are myriad reasons for this “renaissance” of rail transport, which tend to differ depending on the area of the huge continent involved. There are, however, some common drivers for development. First and foremost, Africa has the largest supply of still untapped natural resources in the world: the rapid economic growth of India, but especially China, over the last few years requires constantly increasing availability of these materials. Suffice it to say that China alone, in 2011, imported raw materials from Africa for an overall value of 93 billon dollars, and that over 800 large groups – particularly belonging to the infrastructure and energy sectors (but now also the finance sector) are operating directly in the continent.
]]>Finally, about 50 km of lines make up the hub lines most of which are inFlorence. This dichotomy can also be seen by analyzing the network in terms of infrastructure types: 792 km of line are double track, 687 km are single track, and while 976 km are electrified no less than 503 km are still diesel traction. In short, a varied landscape with “strong” lines with heavy traffic, such as the one running down the Tyrrhenian coast and the Bologna-Rome main line (operating as a standard and high-speed line) and a broad and capillary network of local connections providing an important regional service. Another feature is the strong centralization of traffic on the city ofFlorence and to a lesser extent onPisa. If one considers the presence of two of the country’s north-south corridors, not to mention an important mountain pass freight line which runs from the ports on the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Po Valley, such as the Pontremolese railway line, it is clear thatTuscany represents a key area for the entire Italian railway network. We spoke to Massimo Del Prete (Engineer), head of the Florence Maintenance and Operations Department for RFI.
]]>Of course, many projects are still directly linked to the exploitation of the abundant natural resources, but the idea is gradually spreading that the lines to be built cannot and should not be exclusively geared to the interests of the mining companies. In any case, analysts agree in singling out West Africa as one of the areas which, in the next few years, will record the highest percentage growth rates in investments in rail infrastructures. We shall be dealing again with Africa, recounting some of these large projects more in detail. In this issue we shall continue our tour through the structure of Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, describing the organisation and projects of one of the most important Regional Directorates, that of Tuscany. This has enabled us to discover how excellent connections are guaranteed along the three main national lines, the High Speed line from Bologna to Rome, the historic line known by railway workers as the Slow Line and the Tyrrhenian line. Similarly, Tuscany is affected by heavy regional traffic and also offers, in the splendid hills south of Siena, one of the most charming tourist rail services available in Italy today.
We then move to Sardinia, where the cities of Sassari and Cagliari boast modern metro-tramway systems which are to be extended and upgraded in the near future. Also particularly interesting is the choice of ARST – the regional company responsible for local public road-rail transport services – to focus firmly on tram and train systems, using to advantage the already existing narrow gauge rail network. This is a demonstration that, even at a time in our history when it is not easy to find funding for the upgrading of public transport, careful and proactive management can devise innovative solutions with the power to produce a giant leap forward in terms of the quality of the service offered. The issue is completed by a number of excellent technical articles – the one based on the study of human error in the design engineering and management of safety systems is of special interest. This is a topic that is always on the agenda for the railway, which is universally acknowledged to be the safest means of transport we have at our disposal.
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Railway Engineering: Mr. Medeghini, Brescia’s automatic light metro was officially opened just over a year ago, on 2 March 2013, and it’s already a success. You must be really pleased.
Marco Medeghini:Considering the new aspects and the innovation you mentioned earlier, (in terms of Brescia being the smallest Italian city and one of the smallest in Europe to have a metro), we were always particularly cautious. Now we can say, with satisfaction, that we have achieved a good result, both in terms of ridership, approximately 12 million (as opposed to the 10 million expected in the ten months of operation in 2013), averaging approximately 40,000 passengers/day, and in the reduction of road traffic (2% in the overall average, 5-10% within the urban context) which has led to less congestion and a subsequent reduction in pollutant emissions and journey time costs.
Not many cities in Italy or Europe have built themselves a metro system in recent years. Brescia, a medium-sized city, is without doubt an exemplary and extremely interesting case thanks to the solutions adopted (a medium-sized automatic light metro system) and for its unique vision of integration between the various methods of transport available, from bike sharing (16,000 people subscribed to the scheme in a city with 200,000 inhabitants) to studies on the use of tram-train systems to provide services in the hinterland. Just over a year since the metro was officially opened, the results, in terms of ridership and above all in new users who have switched over to public transport, are significant. We spoke to Marco Medeghini, engineer, General Manager of Brescia Mobilità and Metro Brescia S.r.l..
Railway Engineering: Mr. Medeghini, Brescia’s automatic light metro was officially opened just over a year ago, on 2 March 2013, and it’s already a success. You must be really pleased.
Marco Medeghini: Considering the new aspects and the innovation you mentioned earlier, (in terms of Brescia being the smallest Italian city and one of the smallest in Europe to have a metro), we were always particularly cautious. Now we can say, with satisfaction, that we have achieved a good result, both in terms of ridership, approximately 12 million (as opposed to the 10 million expected in the ten months of operation in 2013), averaging approximately 40,000 passengers/day, and in the reduction of road traffic (2% in the overall average, 5-10% within the urban context) which has led to less congestion and a subsequent reduction in pollutant emissions and journey time costs.
]]>Our interview with Mr. Pour Fakhri takes place during a long tour, first on board a comfortable minibus and then on foot between the railway tracks and quays, to get a closer look at how Iran’s largest port operates and how the Iranian Railways work to support it.
Our visit starts at the regional headquarters of the Iranian Railways, just a few yards away from the Bandar Abbas passenger station, and proceeds west, a few kilometres out of the city, to the site of the new commercial port.
Railway Engineering: The Iranian national railways include various regional districts: you are in charge of the Hormozgan district. Can you tell us about the railway system in this district and its distinguishing features?
Engineer Pour Fakhri: The Iranian rail network is divided, from an operational and administrative point of view, into 18 regional districts. The Hormozgan railway district was put into operation in 1990. In this district the railway network covers 650 km from Bafq to the station in Bandar Abbas. This line, which was originally built as a single track railway, is now all double track thanks to recent completion of track doubling work on the last 180 km from Tazerej to Bandar Abbas.
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Railway Engineering: The Islamic Republic of Iran, thanks to its geographical location, plays a key role in land links between Europe and Asia. Can you tell us how railway relations currently stand between the neighbouring countries ?
Abbas Nazari: The Middle East is a bridge between Asia and Europe and Iran plays a fundamental political role in this area.
]]>Bologna is a complex hub to manage, both in terms of traffic circulation and maintenance operations for lines and stations. The network in Emilia Romagna covers 1,306 km, with an overall length of track exceeding 2,000 km. This includes 742 km of main lines, 394 km of secondary lines and 170 km of nodes. The high-speed network, between the main line tracks and the tracks creating connections with the standard network, covers over 300 km. We spoke to the manager in charge of the Maintenance and Operations Department for RFI in Bologna, Mr. Also Isi, engineer.
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But, as always, alongside its international features Railway Engineering brings you some articles dedicated to Italian excellence.
In this issue we give you an insight into the activity of the RFI (Italian Rail Network) in one of the most important regions of the country, Emilia Romagna, and theBologna hub in particular. Then we went to the beautiful city ofBrescia in Lombardy, about eighty kilometres east ofMilan, to look at the automatic light metro system which has recently celebrated its first year of operation.
Two sides of the same approach to rail transport: the latest in avant-garde technologies and an organization that places customer satisfaction as its goal for every activity.
A visit to the new central control facility in Bologna, which not only manages train traffic for the whole region, the high-speed network included, but also monitors the entire infrastructure, also thanks to the use of innovative devices such as the one which checks the condition of the locomotives’ pantographs while they are running at full speed, shows just how much RFI has invested in technological innovation over the last few years.
Equally interesting is to find out how Brescia, a city with just over 200,000 inhabitants has managed to build itself an ultramodern automatic light metro system – built by Ansaldo Breda and Ansaldo STS – refuting the idea that this type of transport system is unfeasible for cities with a population of less than one million. After a year of operation, the results are entirely positive, especially since the metro system has managed to convince a substantial part of the population who used to travel by car to switch to public transport.
We hope you enjoy reading this issue and that you find these stories as interesting as we do. As always, we look forward to bringing you more news fromItalyand around the world in two months’ time.
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Railway Engineering: Gest is the company in charge of running the T1 Line of the Florence tramway network and in future also the T2 and T3 Lines. Could you first of all give us an overview of Gest, its history and what it does? What are the most important features of the concession?
Bruno Lombardi: Gest is a joint stock company responsible for running services on the tramway network in Florence, both on the existing T1 Line, the only one currently in operation, and the T2 and T3 Lines, due to come into service in the near future. Until 2012, Gest’s shareholding was divided between the French company RATP Dev (part of the RATP Group) one of the world’s leading groups in the public transport sector…
]]>Railway Engineering: The Mexican government has privatized and franchised the state railways to private rail operators in the hope of increasing efficiency and productivity. Ferrocarril del Istmo de Tehuantepec is the only rail network which is still state-run. Can you just explain the legislative framework in which the railway operates and the reasons behind this situation?Gustavo Baca Villanueva: When the National Congress met to franchise the railway network it determined that this decision would apply to all the lines except this one because it is considered a key line for the country. The reason given by Congress at that time was that the line has a strategic role because the Isthmus of Tehunantepec is considered a fundamental region for Mexico as a whole. Of course, there are also historical reasons…
]]>We met Italferr’s managing director, Mr. Matteo Triglia, who told us how the company (which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year) has managed to reach these impressive results and what its goals are for the near future. Italferr is an example of how Italian railway engineering excellence, in all of its many facets, is admired and sought after overseas and how this can be a competitive advantage for all Italian companies operating in this sector.
Railway Engineering: Mr. Triglia, Italferr is considered one of the most authoritative engineering companies in the world: 30 years after it was founded, how can we sum up its history?
Matteo Triglia: This October we will be celebrating our 30th anniversary. We are getting ready for this important event by preparing a series of initiatives which will clearly illustrate everything we have achieved over the years. The overall outcome is extremely positive…
]]>This is highlighted in the words of Matteo Triglia, Managing Director of Italferr, which illustrate how Italian railway engineering excellence, in all of its many facets, is admired and sought after overseas and how this can be a competitive advantage for all Italian companies operating in this sector.
In fact, for a number of years now Italferr has been orientated towards an international dimension where it has become a leading engineering company on the international stage. In recent months it has acquired a number of important work orders overseas, strengthening its presence in Middle Eastern countries, an area where huge investments in the railway and metro system sector are expected to be made in the coming years.
Similarly, in the city of Florence we uncover a really successful enterprise, that of Gest S.p.A., the company which is now 100% owned by the French group, RATP, and holds the concession to run the Florence tramway system.
In this cradle of the Renaissance, the T1 tramway line has achieved some amazing results: in terms of ridership, numbers have gone way beyond expectations, and in terms of user satisfaction, 74% of passengers interviewed defined the service as excellent.
This and other future developments linked to the construction of the new T2 and T3 lines were explained to us by Gest’s Chairman, Bruno Lombardi and the Managing Director, Jean-Luc Laugaa.
And that’s not all: our journey into Mexico continues.
This time we have an article which takes a detailed look at a small but really important railroad, the Ferrocarril del Istmo de Tehuantepec: approximately 200 km of track which runs between the Mexican ports on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the only railway which the Mexican government decided not to award a concession for.
We spoke to Gustavo Baca Villanueva, General Manager of Ferrocarril del Istmo de Tehuantepec, whom we met in the company’s headquarters in Mexico City.
Then we wanted to take a look at urban transport by interviewing Mauricio Trejo, Sales Manager of Ferrocarriles Suburbanos. Of the overall envisaged project covering 242 km, at present a 27-km line is in operation and carries over 150,000 passengers a day on its latest-generation trains.
We have also included a special article dedicated to the metropolitan transport system in Mexico City.
On that note, we have only to wish you an enjoyable read of this issue of Railway Engineering which, as always, is packed with exclusive articles written with our readers in mind.
]]>Railway Engineering: Mr. Broglia, first of all could you give us a general picture of Metropolitana Milanese S.p.A.? When was it founded, who controls it, how is it structured and what is its mission?
Marco Broglia: We can start by saying that Metropolitana Milanese was founded in 1955, so it will soon be celebrating its 60th anniversary. It is a joint stock company 100% controlled by the Municipality of Milan. It was established to engineer and build the metro lines in Lombardy’s regional capital but over the years it has become a leader in Italy, as well as one of the world’s top engineering companies, operating in the sector of urban and suburban public rail transport infrastructures and large public works in general. Since 2003 it has also been managing the Integrated Water Service for the City of Milan, which means it takes care of water collection, purification, distribution and sewage treatment. Today our company employs 700 people, 450 of which work in the Integrated Water Service while the remaining 250 employees work in the engineering sector.
]]>Ferromex is the railway undertaking that has been awarded the concession for the largest part of the Mexican railway network. It manages more than 8,100 km of track and is also the company with the largest number of locomotives (as many as 597) and freight cars (over 14,000) in service. It links up some of the main cities in the north of the country, four ports on the Pacific and two on theAtlantic. It also reaches as many as five cities bordering with theUnited States. On its own, it transports 55% of rail freight inMexico. Ferromex provides general railroad freight and intermodal services, but it also manages – a unique case in Mexico – two passenger services. Moreover, it also provides handling services in goods and intermodal terminals and is specialised in automotive logistics, serving numerous car factories throughout the country. It is controlled by the Grupo Mexico (which operates in the mineral and logistics sectors) and its minority shareholder (26%) is the famousUSrailway undertaking, Union Pacific. The financial results are more than gratifying and last November the Fitch rating agency confirmed the AAA rating of the issuing of its share certificates.
We met the Chief Operating Officer of Ferromex, Lorenzo Reyes, who explained to us how the company has achieved these goals, and outlined its future developments.
Railway Engineering: Ferromex is the most important railway undertaking in Mexico. Can you give us a general overview of the company and its history? …
]]>Railway Engineering: Mr Lebruto, you head one of RFI’s most important Maintenance and Operations Departments. What area are you in charge of and what are your tasks?
Umberto Lebruto: I am in charge of the Maintenance and Operations Department in Milan. In particular I manage routine and extraordinary maintenance operations on the Rete Ferroviaria Italiana infrastructures in Lombardy. What’s more I am also in charge of rail traffic circulation on this network. Operations therefore means not just maintenance services, but also circulation and business operations such as shunting, station and high-speed services.
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Here we met Engineer Umberto Lebruto, who not only told us all about the competences and activities carried out by his structure, but also described for us the numerous investments which Rete Ferroviaria Italiana has underway or will soon be activating to make the infrastructure even more efficient. These are very specific and technical investments which are fundamental for making sure that everything runs as smoothly as possible.
Then we also took into consideration the field of urban transport by interviewing Engineer Marco Broglia, head of the Transportation System Design Department of Metropolitana Milanese S.p.A., a company which entered the history books of Milan public transport when it built the city’s first metro line fifty years ago.
It is an important company in the Italian and international market thanks to its high level of technical proficiencies. Its activities in the engineering and building phase of works is fundamental for being able to create an infrastructure which lives up to expectations.
From Milan we then set off for the first of two stops which took us to Mexico where we met two of the most important railway operators: Ferromex and Kansas City Southern de México.
Ferromex is the railway undertaking which holds a concession to run the largest section of the Mexican railway network, with over 8,100 km of track, and has a crucial role in freight transport and for rail links with the United States.
The Kansas City Southern de México (KCSM) undertaking is also linked to the United States because it is controlled by an American company, the Kansas City Southern (KCS), with which if forms a large freight railway undertaking which runs services between the two countries.
Both told us how the two companies have reached important goals and about their future developments.
So I shall leave you to enjoy your magazine and read the many interesting facts which you can find in this issue. Don’t miss the next edition of Railway Engineering.
]]>There is a very close relationship between Naples and the railway. It was here that, on 3 October 1839, the first railway in Italy, 7.5 km long from Naples to Portici, was opened. It is no surprise, then, that the city and its metropolitan area are served by a large number of railway and tramway lines as well as several funicular railways. Metronapoli Spa is the Naples Municipality company that manages part of this system: the heavy metropolitan railway, which in the urban transport system is identified as Line 1, the light metropolitan railway in the process of completion which corresponds to Line 6, and four funicular railways, of extreme importance for public transport in a city that is located on the sea but that extends above all up into the hills and has the slopes of Vesuvius as its backdrop. We met Metronapoli Spa’s Sole Administrator, Mr Alberto Ramaglia, engineer, and its Operations Manager Vincenzo Orazzo, also an engineer, who illustrated for us in detail the present and future situation of the company and led us to discover some unique features of their network, starting from the “Stazioni dell’Arte” (“Stations of Art”), an initiative with which they have revolutionised in a positive way the exploitation of the stations of the metropolitan system.
Railway Engineering: Mr. Ramaglia, let’s start with a description of what Metronapoli is and what it does. When was the company created and who controls it?
Alberto Ramaglia: Metronapoli Spa today is the company that manages Line 1 and Line 6 of the metropolitan railway network and the four city funicular railways for Naples Municipality, which controls it through Napoli Holding, one of its own subsidiaries.
]]>The fact that Africa is the market of the future for the railway sector, as many analysts have frequently maintained, is confirmed by the very recent mega-contract signed by Alstom in South Africa: 4 billion euros for 600 passenger trains to be delivered between 2015 and 2025. South Africa certainly has a railway infrastructure more similar to that of European countries than to that of most of the other African nations, but there is now a clear increase in interest and – where economic conditions allow – in investments. And the North African countries, in particular those overlooking the Mediterranean, have in recent years adopted a policy in this respect, which is beginning to bear fruit. Undoubtedly, the political instability characterising the region has greatly slowed down this process. The events that have brought the area to the front pages of all the newspapers since December 2010, collectively called the “Arab Spring” by the western media, have had very different impacts: a violent revolt overthrew Gaddafi’s forty-year regime in Libya, but the country is now in the grip of strong instability, and in Egypt, when President Mubarak was deposed, elections followed that were won by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement, but the government, led by their leader Mohammed Morsi, was removed by the military in July of this year and the country is awaiting new elections, presumably in the spring of next year. Popular protests in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, on the other hand, have not led to substantial changes in the political and institutional order in these countries, where projects regarding new railways and tramways have continued without great setbacks.
]]>Railway Engineering: Mr Bono, let’s start from the slabs, the concrete blocks that make it possible to lay the track without requiring the traditional ballast. You were responsible for developing this system in Italy right from the outset – we are referring to the mid-1980s. Now they are a technical reality and a product that is perfectly acknowledged and widely used. But how did these slabs actually come about?
This time we travelled to the countries of North Africa, and in particular those looking onto theMediterraneanwhere, in spite of the political instability that has certainly slowed down the process, a policy of strong investment has been pursued over recent years to respond to the growing demand for rail transport.
Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Sudan: the projects now going on in these countries are diverse and often involve considerable financial outlays; they range from the creation of high speed lines to designing tramway and metropolitan systems in the main cities, right down to restoring old lines and renewing the rolling stock. You’ll find this and lots more in the “Focus On” section inside.
As always, there’ll be a look at Italy as a bearer of excellence in the field of railway engineering: in the interview with the engineer Giancarlo Bono, author of university texts and designer of the Italian slab-track system, we’ll tell you all about superstructures, both traditional and innovative, with a particular focus on the highly interesting applications he’s found not only in the field of railways, but also of tramways and metropolitan networks.
And it’s to the urban transport sector that we dedicate, as we normally do, the “Special” section, this time turning our attention to the South of Italy and to one city in particular,Naples. Because of its very unusual geographical conformation and considerable density of population,Napleshas had to equip itself – and it continues to do so – with a complex and articulated urban transport network: a heavy metropolitan line (Line 1), a light metro line still in the process of completion (Line 6) and four funicular railways.
We interviewed Alberto Ramaglia, Sole Administrator, and Vincenzo Orazzo, Operations Manager of Metronapoli SpA, the Naples Municipality company that manages this network. This time, however, as well as the usual technical, operational and logistical aspects, we wanted to widen our scope of interest and talk about a unique project of its kind “Le stazioni dell’Arte” (“Stations of Art”), which aims to make transport areas more attractive: with artistic coordination by Achille Bonito Oliva, the interior and exterior spaces of the stations have been adorned with over 180 works by 90 of the most prestigious contemporary artists, to comprise one of the most interesting examples of a decentralized museum spread over the entire urban area.
]]>Ferrovienord is the company of the FNM Group (the acronym for Ferrovie Nord Milano – North Milan Railways) which manages the infrastructure franchised out by the Lombardy Region, taking care of routine and extraordinary maintenance of the network, its development and the activation of new systems. FNM, a holding company controlled by the Lombardy Region, is listed on the Milan Stock Exchange and its mission is to provide rail and road transport, mainly for passengers but also freight services, through a group of companies each of which is specialized in its own business activity. In particular, the FNM Group handles rail passenger transport and manages the link toMalpensaInternationalAirport, north ofMilan, as well as road passenger transport and rail freight transport inItaly andEurope. Therefore, despite essentially being a regional railway, it still covers the whole range of activities typical of a large transport operator working on a national level.
The company has a long history as it was established in 1879 for the purpose of building and operating railways in the Lombardy area north of Milan. Electrification (3,000 VDC) of the standard gauge network had already begun back in 1929. Its transformation into a holding company came about in 1985, while in 1993 FNM also acquired the Brescia- Iseo-Edolo railway, thus taking it to its current situation – a network divided into two branches which are not directly linked to one another: the so-called “Milan Branch”, including the historical lines which converge in a spoke-like manner in the north-west of the Lombardy region and lead towards the regional capital, Milan, while the Brescia line to the east runs north to reach the mountain town of Edolo.
]]>For decades Africa has been on the fringes of the world rail market. But for a few years now we have been witnessing an important reversal of trend which has made this continent, and certain of its geographical areas in particular, one of the world’s most dynamic and interesting markets.
There are basically two reasons for this: on the one hand globalization of the economy has led to a greater interest in the enormous mineral deposits dotted all over Africa, while on the other, the growth in population and the start, in many of its countries, of significant economic development (with a growing GDP despite the overall world economic crisis) have made it necessary to develop and modernize the rail networks, in many cases reduced to mere ghosts of the past. A recent survey carried out by the German consultancy company, SCI Verkehr, underlines this trend: if one takes a look at the whole of Africa, the overall extent of the rail network, which totalled 82,100 km in 2011, should, thanks to the numerous projects put forward and in some cases already underway, have reached a total of 96,360 km by 2017. Of course, there is no shortage of problems. These include lack of adequate funding to pay for the projects, privatizations which in various cases have returned very poor results, not to mention insufficient numbers of specialized technicians and engineers.
To this we can add the political instability afflicting vast areas of the continent: the troubles which over the last few months have been affecting the countries overlooking the Mediterranean Sea for example, have put the brakes on numerous railway infrastructure projects.
]]>Rolling stock manufacturers, infrastructure owners, not to mention rail undertakings and public rail transportation management companies, all need, for certain particular activities or situations, the support of external professionals who have a wealth of experience and skill. Professionals who often carry out this activity alongside their university teaching and research jobs.
We met up with Professor Andrea Bracciali, lecturer for the course on Rolling Stock Design and Manufacturing, which is part of the Master’s Degree Course in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Florence, and founding member and owner of AB Consulting Sas, which operates above all in the rail sector.
Professor Bracciali is considered one of the biggest expert consultants in the sector and has worked not only for Gruppo FS Italiane, but also with several regional railways (including narrow gauge railways) and local public transport administrations to tackle problems relative to tramways and metros. Furthermore, he has also dealt with historic trains.
Overseas he has carried out various activities concerning rolling stock and, with regards infrastructure he has worked with SNCF, the French state railways.
At the same time he has provided consultancy services for the most important rolling stock manufacturers both in Italy and abroad.
He is often called upon to collaborate as a technical expert in court proceedings dealing with railway accidents.
]]>Luckily, it would appear that this situation is destined to come to an end soon: in fact, over the last few years we have seen renewed interest in rail transport in a number of countries, in particular those lying in the southern part of the continent, such as Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique, not to mention South Africa of course, which has played an important role of catalyst and promoter in this far from easy task.
We’ve tried to give you an idea as to what’s brewing in this geographical area, so politically unstable while at the same time so strategically important for the world’s economy, thanks to the huge availability of raw materials.
On the Italian front, we are continuing with our series of investigations into urban and suburban transport with a quick look at the infrastructure of the most important regional railways in Italy. We met up with engineer Barra Caracciolo, Managing Director of Ferrovienord who has given our readers an outline of the company, from its history to upgrading works and innovative projects.
The result is the portrait of a complex and articulated company which since way back in 1879 has always been looking to the future, now more so than ever, with Expo 2015 scheduled to be held inMilan. In the coming months, Ferrovienord will present an innovative system for the recovery of brake energy on electric trains, the result of intense research and development work.
On the topic of railway engineering research, we interviewed Professor Andrea Bracciali, lecturer for the Course on Railway Material Construction which is part of the Master’s Degree Course in Mechanical Engineering at theUniversityofFlorence, and consultant with years’ of experience. He has important collaborations under his belt, both inItaly(with Gruppo FS Italiane and numerous regional railways) and abroad (for example with SNCF, the state railways inFrance).
A long chat revealed the incredibly wide range of situations in which the support of a top level consultant is essential in the rail sector: from the development and implementation of a new product, to the perfecting and implementation of international standards, not to mention involvement in court hearings investigating railway accidents.
So, all that remains is for us to wish you a pleasant read and remind you not to miss our next issue!
]]>It is now unanimously acclaimed as an example of excellence in the sector of local public transport in Italy. The Bergamo-Albino tramway which was officially opened four years ago, is proof that even in a medium sized city such as Bergamo, rail transport can have a key role in urban mobility. In the case of Bergamo, a city in Lombardy, around fifty kilometres north-east of Milan and home to 130,000 inhabitants, it is even more interesting because to build this line, the first of a larger network, the railbed of a local disused railway line, the ‘Ferrovia della Val Seriana’, was used. This railway line was closed in 1967, when mass motorization began to take over. Today the line, also known as the ‘Tram delle Valli’ (the Valley Tram), offers an urban service in the city of Bergamo with its first 6 stops and a suburban service to the Valle Seriana Inferiore, which in recent years has become a kind of linear city stretching down to Bergamo. We spoke to Mr Gianni Scarfone, engineer and managing director of TEB (Tramvie Elettriche Bergamasche – Bergamo Electric Tramways) and one of the leading experts in local public transport in Italy.
Railway Engineering: Mr Scarfone, the Bergamo-Albino Tramway is considered a case of excellence in the field of public transport in Italy. Why is that?
Gianni Scarfone: That’s true for a number of reasons: unfortunately Italy does not excel in local public transport, especially if we look at rail systems. It has to be said that in recent years we have seen some encouraging signs but we are without doubt still a long way behind the situations we see in other European countries like France, Germany and Switzerland, for example. Which is why the fact that TEB managed not only to build this engineering work, but also to obtain decidedly positive results, not only in terms of passenger numbers but also in the overall level of approval from the population, is so significant.
]]>Gurgaon is a city with a population of approximately 200,000 situated on the south-west outskirts of New Delhi, along the NH8 motorway. It could be called a satellite city of the federal capital of India with which, of course, it has very close social and economic relations. Tens of thousands of people travel to and from the capital every day to get to work. This is one of the main reasons behind the creation, now almost complete, of a metro rail system serving one of the most developed areas, Cyber City, and with a functional connection to the Delhi Metro Yellow Line at Sikanderpur station.
The job of designing, building and running the metro, which is therefore the first fully privately owned metro in India, was awarded to IL&FS Rail which belongs to the IL&FS Group (Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited), one of the country’s leading companies.
We met Mr. Sanjiv Rai, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of IL&FS Rail who revealed to us some of the salient aspects of this project which became fully operative in recent weeks when it launched its services for passengers.
Railway Engineering: Mr. Rai, first of all can you tell us something about IL&FS and its role in Rapid Metrorail Gurgaon Ltd.?
Sanijv Rai: The IL&FS Group is a privately owned company. Its mission is to invest in, develop and manage infrastructures in all sectors. The Group operates in the road, rail and water sectors, not to mention waste disposal management, energy, real estate, technology and education as well as other fields. What’s more, it manages funds which are dedicated specifically to the infrastructure industry. IL&FS Group also has three listed companies.
]]>Since 22 May 1843, when Ferdinand II of Borbone issued an edict by which the Pietrarsa Workshops on the outskirts of Naples (now the National Railway Museum), then known as the Reale Opificio (Royal Mill), was appointed to “build locomotives, as well as carry out repairs and meet the needs of the locomotives themselves, the carriage accessories and wagons that will travel along the new Naples-Capua railway line“, the Italian railway industry has made great leaps forward, leading it in many cases to excel on an international scale. One need only think of the first experiments in line electrification in Valtellina and the subsequent decision to electrify the line crossing the Giovi pass (still connecting the Port of Genoa to the industrial cities of the Po Valley Plain to this day), which also led to the creation in 1906 of the E550 electric locomotive, at that time a technological masterpiece. Or again, a few decades later, the construction of the ETR 200 electric trains, the direct ancestors of today’s high-speed rail, and the then holders (it was 1937) of the high speed record with 203 km/h being reached near Piacenza. Right up to the invention of the active tilting mechanism for trains which gave rise to the still very active family of Pendolino trains that operate all acrossEurope .
The Italian railway industry developed over the years, as indeed was the case in other European countries, in close symbiosis with the then State Railways, and only over the last few decades, with the radical change in the regulatory framework brought about by the European Union and the opening up to the market of a sector which until then had always been considered a “natural monopoly” it has evolved in order to tackle the challenges of global competition.
]]>Assifer brings together over 98 companies operating in Italy in the railway transport technologies and public mass transport fields, with a total of around 13,000 employees and a total turnover of approximately 3.2 bn Euro for 2012.
Our readers are well aware that one of Railway Engineering’s main objectives is to globally disseminate the valuable specialist technical know-how that comprises the excellence of Italy. In recent years we’ve worked to create a fairly complete scenario of the most important railway engineering research being carried out in Italy, in universities and also in companies in the sector.
On this basis, and to give you an even more complete picture, we interviewed Maurizio Manfellotto, the new chairman of Assifer as well as Managing Director of Ansaldo Breda, to discuss the changes in the Italian railway industry, highlighting the main trends in its development for the next few years and the excellent results achieved.
On the international scene, as anticipated, we’re continuing our journey through India, concentrating on urban transport. In Gurgaon, a city of around 200 thousand inhabitants located on the immediate south-western outskirts of New Delhi, we interviewed Sanjiv Rai, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of IL&FS Rail, the company given the job of designing, building and managing the first wholly private metropolitan railway in the country. He told us about the most important aspects of the project: a metropolitan system that is about to become fully operational in the next few days, serving one of the most highly developed areas in the city – Cyber City – and functionally linked with Delhi Metro.
We concluded the second part of this long “Focus On” by meeting the Managing Director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, Mangu Singh, who led us to discover an efficient metropolitan network that has been active since 2002 and is of fundamental importance for the social and economic life of a city that has 13 million inhabitants and a population density of over 7500 people per sq. km.
Finally, we open the series of “Specials” devoted to urban transport with a long interview with Mr. Gianni Scarfone, engineer and Managing Director of TEB (Tramvie Elettriche Bergamasche – Bergamo Electric Tramways) and one of the major experts in local public transport in Italy, to talk about the great success achieved by the Bergamo-Albino Tramway; this has been open for four years now and is an example of how, even in a middle-sized city like Bergamo, rail transport can play a key role in urban mobility.
To conclude, there is, as always, a great amount of fascinating content. So without wasting any more precious time, I’ll leave you to read this interesting new issue and look forward to seeing you again in September.
]]>In 2025 at least 60% of the world’s population is expected to be living in densely populated urban areas. A phenomenon which is unlikely to see a reverse trend even beyond that date. The concentration of such a large part of the population in relatively restricted areas poses enormous problems of mobility. An example of what it means to move millions of people every day can already be seen in a number of megalopolis: take for example Mexico City and Los Angeles, but also Mumbai and Shangai.
According to forecasts released by UITP (the international network for public transport authorities and operators) the real challenge, between now and 2025 (in other words just 12 years down the line which, if you take into account the time it takes to design and build any kind of public transport system, is as good as saying the day after tomorrow) will be to offer a real alternative to the over 6.3 billion estimated car journeys made every day in the world’s major cities.
More cars and journeys on urban roads means even greater traffic congestion, a higher number of traffic-related deaths, higher levels of pollution and a massive dependence on fossil fuels. A trend which needs to be reversed, not only for environmental reasons (the need to limit CO2 emissions which contribute to the greenhouse effect), but also for economical reasons. In fact the amount of time wasted in traffic, traffic jams and due to the impossible task of finding a parking space, has a significant value in economic terms, and a recovery in system efficiency, also in the field of mobility, would create overall positive knock-on effects. Integration between sustainable urban development and public transport projects makes it possible to achieve individual and collective savings, improve the environment and optimize the use of precious urban spaces. UITP calculates that the cost of transport for an urban community is equal to 5% of GDP in the largest cities, where public transport is widely used, but reaches up to 12% of GDP in areas of urban sprawl where the main means of transport is still the car. In countries like the USA, where mobility revolves around the use of the car, the cost of transport is approximately double that of countries which have focused on public transport.
(Photo courtesy of Alstom transport)
]]>Rail transport, both freight and passenger, is a mainstay of the Indian economy and daily life. The network, built over 150 years ago, reaches out into every corner of the country but is in need of radical reorganization if it is to sustain the tumultuous growth which has catapultedIndiainto the upper circles of the world’s economic powers.
Freight and passenger transport, which operate in different ways, currently coexist on the same lines, but in terms of traffic these lines have reached saturation point. One of the main projects for freight transport (for passenger services the construction of high-speed lines is also being taken into consideration) is to build new lines with special technical characteristics dedicated exclusively to freight. To reach this aim, the Indian government has set up a special company, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India, whose job it is to design, build and future running and maintenance of the new main lines. We met up with the company’s Managing Director, Mr. R.K. Gupta, to get the full picture of this highly ambitious program.
Railway Engineering: India is a huge and complex country. First of all, could you give us a brief description of the Indian rail network?
R.K. Gupta: The first railway built inIndia dates back to 1853 when theBombay to Thane line was built. More recently, in 1951, the system (which in the meantime had developed and spread throughout the whole country) was nationalized and united under a single governing body, the Indian Railways, thus becoming one of the biggest rail networks in the world. IR manages both the long distance rail links and the suburban rail systems thanks to a system which includes broad, metre and narrow gauge lines. On 31 March 2012 the overall extension of the network included 65,000 km of lines (for a total track length of 115,000 km) and 7,500 stations. Thirty-four percent (22,224 km) of the lines are electrified and these carry over 50% of overall traffic. The overhead line has been powered by a 25 kV AC electrification system since 1960.
(Photo courtesy of DFCCIL)
]]>The alternative to traditional track where ballast and sleepers guarantee route geometry is called slab track. This technology has been used increasingly more frequently in recent years thanks to the unquestionable advantages it offers. The rail sector is, by nature, quite tied to tradition and imagining abandoning a system like that of sleepers embedded in ballast—conceptually unchanged for over 150 years and, as a result, considered tried and true—is not easy.
But today, especially for high-speed lines and those that have to support very high axial weights, “ballastless” track construction has become a very interesting option. Without forgetting the advantages that laying tracks directly on concrete slabs offers for tunnels and bridges.
We met with engineer Spartaco Lanni, a well-known Italian expert in the design of railway superstructures (with a number of major textbooks used in university and professional training). Over his long career in the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, Lanni has held a number of different positions in which he was involved specifically in “experimental projects in innovative superstructures that sit on non-ballast materials”. Who better to explain in detail this new technology and describe its applications?
]]>We met with engineer Spartaco Lanni, a successful expert in the design of railway superstructures with a long career behind him working in the Ferrovie dello Stato Ferrovie dello Stato italiano Italiane. He gave us a detailed account of the benefits and applications of ballastless systems as an alternative to standard railway tracks.
Solutions such as the Slab Track System offered by IPA and IPA International: an innovative track system made up of prefabricated, prestressed concrete slabs laid on a foundation with an intermediate mortar bed injected in situ. This system has found numerous applications in our railway network, from the Sciliar tunnel on the Verona-Brennero line, to the Carnia-Tarvisio line, up to the more recent works to build the Milan through line not to mention in the ‘Milano Cadorna’ terminal station of the Ferrovie Nord Milano.
As usual, Railway Engineering’s attentive eye cannot be kept from looking abroad and informing our regular readers all about the evolution of a railway system in a rapidly developing nation: this issue takes a look at India, where rail transport, both freight and passenger, is a mainstay of the Indian economy and daily life. An accurate, in-depth Focus On feature, packed with interesting contents has been divided into two parts just to keep you with bated breath.
In this issue we will begin by telling you about the Dedicated Freight Corridor project, two lines with special technical characteristics which, between 2015 and 2016, will cover 3,300 km to deal with the exponential increase in the demand for freight transport brought about by India’s rapidly growing economy. To ensure we did a good job, we interviewed Mr. R.K. Gupta, Managing Director of DFCCIL (Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India) the company established by the Indian government specifically to follow the design, building and future running and maintenance of the new main lines. Furthermore, we also had a chat with Vinayak Deshpande, Managing Director of Tata Projects, one of the most dynamic companies in India operating in the infrastructures sector, involved, what’s more, in the works for building the Dedicated Freight Corridor.
Staying in the field of railways, but with a look at the world of passenger transport, we interviewed Mr. Rakesh Saksena, Managing Director of Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation Ltd. about the plans for development and growth affecting the suburban rail system in Mumbai, one of the most complex in the world, with over 7.4 million passengers a day travelling on the 319 km of available track.
The aspect of urban mobility is something which we will be taking an even closer look at in our next issue, with part two of the Focus On feature dedicated to the metropolitan projects in Ahmedabad and Delhi.
And the question of rail transport systems spreading in cities and metropolitan areas throughout the world as the only possible answer to urban traffic congestion is increasingly arousing our interest, also because investments in this sector are growing by over 6% a year and forecasts state that by 2025 at least 60% of the world’s population is expected to be living in densely populated urban areas. This is why in this issue we are unveiling the very first in a series of Special articles dedicated to this topic.
So that we can be first in line in picking up on the changes and news in the world of rail mobility and constantly provide you with an up-to-date and far-sighted view.
Yet again, enjoy your read!
(Photo courtesy of Alstom transport)
]]>But it would be wrong to think that what’s new about the Frecciarossa 1000 is simply its speed: of course no other high-speed commercial service in Europe can operate at a speed of 360 km/h and this target is achievable without having to carry out any special upgrades on the existing structure which is approved for speeds of up to 300 km/h. As a result of all the innovations that set it apart, the Frecciarossa 1000 marks a true change of pace in the creation of very high-speed trains, beginning with the fact that it will be the first ever train to comply with all Technical Specifications for interoperability (TSI) and have the capability of circulating on all of Europe’s networks.
In August of 2010 Trenitalia, the transport company belonging to the Gruppo FS Italiane, awarded the contract for the construction of 50 very high-speed trains, worth in the region of €1.5 billion, (€30.8 million per train) to the AnsaldoBreda-Bombardier consortium. The tender focused very heavily on the technological aspect (which in terms of awarding the contract was worth no fewer than 70 of the 100 points) and required bidders to construct a train with highly advanced technical features. The Italian-Canadian consortium won the bid by putting forward a train developed from the AnsaldoBreda’s V250 and Bombardier’s Zefiro platforms. All 50 trains will be built inItalyin the AnsaldoBreda plants inPistoiaand those of Bombardier in Vado Ligure.
]]>He began working for FS in 1975 and as time went by he held increasingly important roles until 1998 when he was placed in charge of the Technical Department of the Infrastructures Division and in 2001, with the creation of RFI SpA, he became its Technical Director. Under his leadership the ERTMS/ETCS system was designed and created – the most advanced rail safety technology deployed on fast (High Speed/High Capacity) lines – adopted by the European Union as a standard of reference for new transnational high-speed systems and the recipient of numerous international awards. No one more than he has lived through the exciting yet complex stages of the construction of Europe’s most advanced high-speed railway system at such close quarters.
A system that works so well it draws attention to itself only on those rare occasions when there is a problem – something unavoidable in all transport systems – that disrupts the daily regularity of the services provided by the trains given the appropriately chosen nickname of Frecce (Arrows). Every day the Frecciarossa and Frecciargento services are so dependable that one tends to ignore the complexity that lies behind the simple task of booking a high-speed train on the Internet, boarding a service at the station and of the, at times, inconceivable difficulties that had to be resolved over the years to create the entire network. Of course, the vast majority of travellers are totally oblivious of the fact that thanks to technology they are able to travel at 300 km/h in total safety.
]]>Railway Engineering: Engineer Moretti, what does realization of the high-speed system mean for rail transport and more in general, for mobility in Italy as a whole?
Mauro Moretti: The high-speed system is the most important infrastructural work to be built in this country since the war. Over one thousand kilometres of track serving 65% of the Italian population and the polycentrism of our urban transport system. As early as the late ‘80s it became obvious that the existing network would soon be saturated with too many trains running at different speeds all using the same tracks: long-distance, regional, metropolitan and freight.
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In this issue you will find an exclusive interview with Mauro Moretti, Managing Director of the Ferrovie dello Stato (Italian State Railways) and the prime mover of this major project. With him, we talked about the birth of the project and developments for the future, such as the Naples-Bari line and the conclusion of the Milan-Brescia line and the Padua-Venice tract that will make it possible to connect Milan (and, consequently, all of the current network) with Venice.
We then turn to illustrating the various specific aspects of the Italian High-Speed Rail System, from planning to infrastructure and the highly-efficient safety system adopted.
Helping us to get a detailed grasp of all these areas are Andrea Nardinocchi, technical manager of Italferr, Michele Mario Elia, Managing Director of Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, Carlo Carganico, Managing Director of Italcertifer and Maurizio Gentile, head of production for RFI.
We will discover that in 2012, Italian high-speed rail transported about 40 million passengers and today offers full service that goes beyond simply passenger travel to include a complete range of ancillary services to meet all consumer needs—because they were developed on the basis of continually listening to customer feedback.
To get a full picture of this aspect, we interviewed Marco Caposciutti and Gianfranco Battisti, respectively Technical Director and Manager of Trenitalia’s National and International Passenger Division.
We also take a special in-depth look at the new ETR1000, the first very high-speed train (operating speed of 360 km/h) conforming to TSI standards—i.e., meeting all European interoperability requirements—and therefore able to travel throughout Europe. Designed and built with the goal of optimizing and minimizing energy consumption, and utilizing recycled materials, it is a highly-innovative train that will be unveiled in the very near future.
And finally, we talked to the major manufacturers of rail components that have worked with FS Italiane to create the Italian high-speed rail network: Bombardier, Alstom Ferroviaria and Ansaldo Breda, through the Managing Directors of these three companies – Roberto Tazzioli, Pierre-Louis Bertina and Maurizio Manfellotto.
This issue is our little gift to you, our readers, to collect and enjoy. As always, it has been prepared with all our passion and commitment to provide unique, in-depth coverage.
We hope you like it.
Enjoy your read.
]]>Today, the Brazilian railway network extends for 29,817 km, 28,314 of which are managed through 12 concessions controlled by five private undertakings and two state-owned enterprises. The percentage of rail freight – for passenger services are largely restricted to the metropolitan network and there are virtually no long distance links – is equivalent to 25% of the total (freight carried by road amounts to 58%, by water 13%, by air and pipeline a mere 4%) less than that encountered in other countries of similar dimensions. If we exclude Russia, where 81% of the total freight travels by rail (a totally unique situation), in Canada the rate is 46%, while in Australia and the United States it is 43% and in China 37%. The Brazilian government, also in the light of these data, has launched plan to develop logistics and cargo transport, which aims to increase the railway’s share to a significant degree in the years to come.
Before analysing how the Brazilian network is structured today, a brief historical excursus may be of interest to aid our understanding of when the train arrived inBraziland how it took root in this large South American country.
]]>There are many things about Brazil we could talk about, but let’s begin by outlining the current situation both in terms of rail and urban transport systems. Read our Focus On column and you will discover that the rail network inBrazilis the biggest inLatin America, despite the density per surface unit being very low. However, in truth out of over 29,000 km of existing railway, approximately 9,000 km are unusable and a further 10,000 km see the transit of no more than one train a day.
The Brazilian government has shown a strong interest in backing the development of the railway network to help sustain the country’s economy. Consequently it has launched a plan to construct 10,000 km of new lines over the coming years, also in view of the two huge events of worldwide significance they are due to host: the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Furthermore, in this issue we will follow the story of how Italian companies in the sector are operating around the world thanks to their engineering excellence, with an article dedicated to Italferr, leader in railway infrastructure design, and its overseas activities.
We talked to Engineer Renato Casale who told us how the experience Italferr has gained in designing high speed lines and urban rail nodes in Italy has allowed it to acquire extremely complex expertise which is much sought after on the international market, something which has allowed the company to work in over fifty countries in Europe, Africa, South America and Arab states.
On the subject of Italian railway engineering excellence around the world, we couldn’t not talk to Engineer Luigi Morisi, Secretary-General of the CIFI (Collegio Ingegneri Ferroviari Italiani -ItalianCollegeof Railway Engineers) which works to cultivate and support this expertise. You can read in the article published in the Special section how the CIFI has been a reference point for training Italian engineers (and not only) for over a century. And the success enjoyed by Italcertifer and Italferr abroad are a fine example.
Enjoy your read.
]]>We spoke to Mr. Luigi Morisi, an engineer who knows his Italian colleagues very well because for a number of years now he has held the role of Secretary General of the CIFI (Collegio Ingegneri Ferroviari Italiani – College of Italian Railway Engineers), the Italian association which brings together professionals from this sector and whose chairman is the Managing Director of Gruppo FSI, Mauro Moretti. Until the end of December 2012 Morisi also holded another important role, that of Chairman of the Assifer/ANIE, (Associazione dell’Industria Ferroviaria – the Italian Railway Industry Association). This double appointment gives him a truly all-round vision over the world of the railways, not just in Italy, and the cross-section he draws for us during his interview manages to put some of the lesser known, though by no means less interesting, aspects of the railway sector, into focus.
Railway Engineering: Mr. Morisi, what exactly is the CIFI and what does it do? How many engineers and experts belong to it?
Luigi Morisi: The CIFI is a truly historical cultural organization being founded way back in 1899, even earlier than the Ferrovie dello Stato (Italian State Railways) in other words, which was established in 1905…
]]>It is considered one of the most authoritative railway engineering companies in the world: it has designed and directed the construction of the High Speed system in Italy, which boasts absolute technological excellences; it has worked abroad in over fifty countries, from those of the Mediterranean to Kazakhstan and even as far as Australia for public and private clients of primary importance. This jewel in Italy’s crown is called Italferr and it is a company that belongs to Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (Italian State Railways Group). Mr Renato Casale, engineer and CEO of Italferr, accompanied us on an exploration of an enterprise that never fails to amaze for the way in which it has succeeded in establishing itself in such a difficult market with such tough competitors. Eng. Casale receives us at the company’s new premises in Rome: a modern, functional building, not far from the city centre. Splendid – elegantly black and white – giant photos hanging on the walls elevate the railway infrastructures designed and engineered to magnificent architectural elements.
Railway Engineering: Eng. Casale, could you begin by telling us the story of Italferr. When and how was it founded?
Renato Casale: Italferr was set up in 1984: it is 100% controlled by Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane and, at the outset, it was a company created to work primarily abroad…
]]>Among the objectives, the development of the Senegal River basin and the exploitation of the country’s mineral wealth.
Rail transport in Senegal over the past twenty years has taken a progressive and dramatic downturn. The lack of public and private investment in the existing network, due to the concentration of all available resources on road transport, has had a dual effect.
On the one hand, it has made road traffic even more chaotic (if such a thing was possible!), and on the other it has deprived the country of a fundamental infrastructure at the very moment in which the decision was taken to focus efforts on the exploitation of the country’s immense mineral resources, for the transportation of which an averagely functional (at the very least) rail network is indispensable. Today, traffic is limited to a few freight trains running on the line from Dakar to Mali, and a fairly small, metropolitan-type passenger service between the centre of Dakar and the suburbs. All other services have been suspended.
The new Government, which took office last Spring, has placed the railway, its recovery and relaunch at the top of the agenda, as major priorities. And action has already been taken: at the beginning of October, a meeting at top government levels between Senegal and Mali was held in Dakar in order to decide upon the future of the international line, which is of fundamental importance also for the economy of Mali itself. Parallel with this event, the Senegalese Government drew up a recovery plan which, in the course of a few years, should lead to a resumption of rail traffic, including passenger services on the existing lines, after appropriate upgrading and construction of new sections in various parts of the country.
The new Infrastructure and Transport Minister of the Senegalese Government, his Excellency Mr Mor Ngom, has kindly taken the time to answer our questions, illustrating in a clear and precise manner the current situation and the projects that are presently underway.
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A great deal of focus on technology and sustainability. Managing directors of the leading companies operating in Italy have commentated on this edition for us and analyzed market trends.
With 19% more visitors than in 2010, Innotrans (already at it’s ninth edition) reaffirmed itself as the world’s leading trade fair for the railway industry.
Over the course of four days, no less than 126,110 trade visitors flocked to the pavilions of the Berlin Trade Fair with 50% of them coming from outside Germany. A figure which, especially in light of today’s economic climate, shows just how the rail sector is still brisk and guarantees concrete business opportunities especially in emerging markets. The market of the rail industry passes through Berlin, in fact 2515 companies (144 from Italy) took part in this year’s edition. There was a significant presence of Chinese companies, such as CSR whose stand exhibited its entire range of high-speed trains including, amongst others, the CHR 380, derived from the test train with over 21,000 kW of power, not to mention Japanese companies, including Hitachi which is beginning to export its trains to the United Kingdom and Ukraine.
And it has to be said that the mock-up of Trenitalia’s Frecciarossa 1000 did not fail to stir up an enormous amount of interest at its very first international showing after its presentation in Rimini in August …
]]>The company belonging to Gruppo FS (Italian State Railways Group) is the only one to have certified a high-speed line outside its own country: now, after its job in Turkey, it is certifying the Mecca – Medina high-speed rail link in Saudi Arabia.
Over the last few years Italcertifer has evolved radically: from a body involved in testing and research within the Gruppo FS to a company operating on an international level in the sector dealing with Project Safety Verification and Validation Certification for public-sector contracting. The rigour and expertise which the company has always adopted when carrying out its activities have rapidly catapulted it to the top of the sector, allowing it to obtain highly prestigious work orders for example in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arabian Emirates, India and China.
At the same time it has developed an activity of equal regard which is of interest to companies involved in building railway components and superstructures. We had the pleasure of meeting the chairman and managing director of Italcertifer, Engineer Carlo Carganico who told us all about the evolution of this company with his usual renowned enthusiasm.
RE: Mr. Carganico, can you give us a brief “picture” of Italcertifer S.p.A.? Who are the partners in this very special Joint Stock Company, what is it and what does it do?
Carlo Carganico: Italcertifer was founded in 2001, initially its statutory aim focused on research and certification activities for guided transport components, systems and subsystems…
]]>Brought to a close on 21 September, the top international trade fair for the rail sector sent out some very precise signals: an increase in the number of exhibiting companies and visitors, a more substantial presence and direct interest from Arab, Indian, Russian and South American delegations and no less than 104 world premiers of new products, all to the companies’ benefit, as you can read in the words of the top managers we interviewed for the Special section of our magazine.
A market which is by no means standing still therefore, and this means that even a prestigious Italian company such as Italcertifer needs to evolve radically: from a body which took care of testing and research within the Gruppo FS to a company operating on an international level in the sector of Certification of Safety Verification and Validation of projects for public-sector contracting.
As you can read in the interview with the chairman and managing director of Italcertifer, engineer Carlo Carganico, the company has undergone some significant changes to become an increasingly reliable certification company on an international level and, through some important projects underway overseas, it has managed to export the expertise shown by Gruppo FS in designing the high-speed line with the highest level of performance ever built in the world.
And in this context African countries, which have recently been the topic of some of our Focus On articles, are also working towards sustaining their own economic growth. In this issue we talk about Senegal which, as the Minister of Infrastructure of Transport, Mor Ngom, and his technical adviser, engineer El Hadji Malick Niang, explained, is gearing itself up with a series of tools to relaunch railway transport, including a new franchising and management model for the country’s main railway line.
We had the pleasure of meeting them in Dakar just as an important round of consultations was taking place also with colleagues from Mali which, together with Senegal, shares ownership of the country’s main line, the one running from the capital to Bamako. A route which could one day become part of that west-east transcontinental line crossing the continent which the Islamic Countries Conference has dreamt about realizing on more than one occasion.
So in this November issue there is no shortage of interesting topics and interviews which, as always, are exclusive to Railway Engineering.
As we leave you to your reading, may we just remind you to come and visit our portal www.railwayengineering.it where you can download the PDF version of our magazine by simply entering the username and password sent to all of those who gave us an e-mail address.
If you haven’t already done so, send your email address to us at info@railwayengineering.it and you will receive your own personal username and password.
Enjoy your read.
]]>Railway Engineering: What are the reasons for making railway infrastructure building a part of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’s Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP)?
Getachew Betru: The Government of Ethiopia has been formulating the right strategy to use to bring the country up to the average international standard. It has also determined a growth in population over a vast land area, and developed large potential resources for agriculture over several decades with excellent policies and further projects. The strategy for the transport sector has therefore also been created in parallel with the above. The fact is that, during the past decade or so, the country has witnessed unprecedented accelerated economic growth in double figures. This kind of growth will double the GDP in the coming few years. Due to the rapid growth of the economy, transport requirements could rise to a phenomenal level for land transport, both rail and road. In the light of these requirements, the entire countrywide, intercity and urban-rural transport strategy of the country has been put under review, to take into account the needs for better access to new areas to unlock the potentials of the country by means of an efficient high volume of transport. The country’s foreign trade also…
]]>The ANSF is technically independent of all the operators in the railway field; it supplies them with legal guidelines on the regulations and the requirements they must fulfil, and makes sure that safety levels are maintained or improved.
The greatest revolution introduced by the ANSF, however, is a cultural one: until today, safety on the railways was mainly achieved through a set of rules that described in detail each behaviour/rule to which anybody had to conform. Today, however, in line with the instructions that originate also at EU level, they are going towards an approach that makes operators themselves responsible, asking them to make an accurate risk analysis and consequently to establish their own standards of behaviour that will eliminate the risks. In simple terms, red signals, along with the basic standards of traffic and operation, remain the same, but safety in the railway system is guaranteed also by hundreds of other aspects that can be managed more effectively and consistently with the technical evolution of the past decades.
This is a complex, intricate world that the engineer Alberto Chiovelli, ANSF director, revealed to us in this interview, in which, as well as explaining us the principles on which the Agency is based and the institutional work it carries out, he tells us about some concrete cases it has dealt with in these four years of intensive activity.
]]>Our journey begins on a trip to uncover a country, Ethiopia, which has survived numerous wars, from WWII to the war against Somalia and the Eritrean War of Independence: after almost a century of turbulence a glimmer of hope can be seen for real economic reconstruction.
For our “Focus On” column we met up with the CEO of Chemin de Fer Djibouto-Ethiopien (CDE), Engineer Ato Thium Tekle Ghebrai for an analysis of the current situation of the Ethiopian rail system and to gain more details on possible developments to modernize the line.
Our report would not be complete without a meeting with Engineer Getachew Betru, CEO and General Manager of the Ethiopian Railways Corporation, the company established in 2007 which received the mandate to develop and build a new national rail network and provide freight and passenger services.
Coming back to Italy, we were met by Engineer Mario Banelli, Operating Manager of La Ferroviaria Italiana, a reality in Tuscany which brings together different companies running local public transport by road and rail and take care of the infrastructures. A company undergoing evolution and always characterized by innovative decisions, from electrification of the lines, to integration of the road and rail services, to company reorganization.
Finally we have for you an interesting chat with Engineer Alberto Chiovelli, Manager of the Agenzia Nationale per la Sicurezza Ferroviaria (Italian National Safety Authority) to take a detailed look at the fundamental role held by ANSF in the overall panorama of Italian railways and to explain the fundamental principles driving it. The establishment of the ANFS is considered a momentous development, an evolution in Italian rail transport, both for the new boundary marked between the relevant safety principles on safety and operating prescriptions as well as for the redistribution of competences between all the subjects present in the world of the railways, some of which are totally new.
So we shall leave you to read the new September issue, packed with exclusive interviews and interesting insights and invite you to take a look at our brand new web portal at www.railwayengineering.it,
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This July edition marks the start of two great new initiatives.
The first is the launch of the www.railwayengineering.it website, an actual portal where our readers will find a summary of the contents of the latest edition and those of previous ones, in a format that is both simple and intuitive.
The new website will be a window onto the world of Railway Engineering, a way of bringing you still closer to us and of taking a look at our content, wherever in the world you may be, even during your business trips.
The second new feature is the launch of a digital version of the magazine. This is yet one more way of keeping up with the times and of ensuring that you will receive your copy of each issue safely and promptly. This will also allow us to make our own small contribution to protecting the environment by reducing the use of paper and fuel.
New issues of our magazine can be downloaded from our website every two months by entering a username and password in the appropriate download area. It will also be possible to save a PDF version of it on your computer or tablet.
In order for you to be able to do this, we will shortly be sending you your unique access details. Enter this information to download your PDF edition of the magazine. You will be informed about the publication of each new issue through our newsletter – which is also something new that we at Railway Engineering have come up with for you – and this will allow you to download it quickly.
Keep the username and password that will be sent to you safe, because you can use them to download all subsequent issues of the magazine. However, please note: being as the contents are reserved specifically for you, our specially selected readers, each edition can only be downloaded once!
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In the meantime we’ll leave you in peace to enjoy reading this new July issue, packed full of exclusive interviews: from an in-depth analysis of the issues relating to RFI procurement of materials for the railway infrastructure, to the latest look at the countries of Latin America, with interviews conducted in Uruguay and Bolivia and finally, to our special feature that describes the activities and plans for an interesting Italian rail network, the Ferrovie del Gargano.
We wish you an enjoyable read and a lovely summer with Railway Engineering.
]]>It is an extremely complex job in terms of organisation and logistics, and a huge responsibility because any problem that arises from materials procurement reflects on the works and therefore on the network’s availability. The network is at the top end of the technological and quality scale on the international scene, but every aspect of it must be dealt with each day with constant, obsessive precision. The railway infrastructure is like a large theatre stage on which megastars such as the Frecciarossa trains and honest character actors such as the Regional trains perform. And just as in the theatre, the play comes to a halt if there are no stagehands and scene shifters to keep it running, so in RFI there are these irreplaceable professionals who ensure that the essential materials for maintenance operations and for investment works are present every day.
We met Alessio Sammartino, manager of the Superstructure Materials and Work Vehicles Operating Department, working in Procurement and Logistics for RFI’s Production Directorate, in order to train the spotlight – continuing the theatrical metaphor – on this activity and the methods used to carry it out.
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A company therefore, which has not limited itself to running the historical line which leads almost to the tip of the Gargano Peninsula through an area of unrivalled beauty, but has also backed rail transport as a method of future transport for the Foggia Province and continues with a process of modernization, not only of the infrastructures, but also of services which, as we shall see, are full of innovative aspects.
The company, whose chairman is Vincenzo Scarcia, answers to a holding controlled by the family of the same name, an important local entrepreneurial group (which doesn’t operate solely in the transport sector), and manages not only the rail service but also a significant network of bus connections on a regional and national level.
We met Daniele Giannetta, operating manager of the Ferrovie del Gargano to get a better idea of the company’s future plans. Daniele Giannetta is an engineer, son and grandson of railwaymen who worked on the “Garganica” (as the line is affectionately known) who loves his job and passionately believes in the possibilities for the train to once again play a major part in the public transport system in Foggia and the region as a whole.
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Several years ago, the government of Uruguay made restoration and development of the railway network, which consists of about 3,000 km of standard gauge track and diesel traction, one of the country’s top priorities. The geographical position of the South American country makes it a natural outlet toward the Atlantic for many of the Mercosur countries. The railway network built in 1869 with a short line of 17 km between Montevideo and Las Piedras has always kept the capital as its hub, and now all the lines in the country converge and radiate from there. In the latter half of the past century, the railway industry went through an extended decline, as in all of South America, and now the government of Uruguay is trying to correct the situation.
Since 2007, when it stipulated the concession to the CND (Corporacion Nacional para el Desarrollo – National Railroad Company) of a number of lines, the plan to relaunch it has been under way.
We met the Chairman of AFE, the state railway company that recently reorganized its structure. Alejandro Orellano illustrated the work currently under way and projects for the future.
The Ferrovie Appulo Lucane (FAL) network stretches between Apulia and Basilicata, linking the cities of Bari, Matera and Potenza. It is run by Ferrovie Appulo Lucane s.r.l. which, as well as providing rail services, also manages an extensive interurban bus network to complete and integrate a full range of services for the inhabitants of the two regions.
The FAL railway lines cover a total of 183 km. The lines are all 950 mm narrow gauge track with diesel traction. The FAL, as an autonomous company, was established on 1 January 2001 from the division of the Ferrovie Calabro Lucane into two separate companies, the Ferrovie Appulo Lucane which were given the Puglia and Basilicata lines to operate and the Ferrovie della Calabria which runs the narrow gauge lines in the Calabria region. The company took over from the Gestione Commissariale Governativa delle Ferrovie Appulo Lucane ed Autoservizi Integrativi (Governmental Commissarial Management of the Ferrovie Appulo Lucane and Integrative Road Services) established in 1990. In that year, Law 160 of 1989 had created separate regional catchment areas for public transport, dividing up the lines which were transferred from the State to the Gestione Commissariale Governativa Ferrovie Calabro Lucane in 1963. The network was built between 1915 and 1934 by the Società Italiana per le Strade Ferrate del Mediterraneo (Italian Company for Railroads in the Mediterranean) with the idea of linking up the main coastal lines to the internal areas of Calabria, Basilicata and Apulia. Leading the FAL today is Matteo Colamussi, Chairman of the Board of Directors whom we met to find out more about the rail company, how it works today and to have a preview of the plans for its future.
]]>Our journey through Latin America continues with an in-depth report on Ecuador, a country where, under the leadership of Rafael Correa Delgado’s government, an incredibly ambitious project is underway to revitalize the railway network and turn it into a valuable tourist and cultural resource.
This is why, as well as interviewing the Deputy Chief Executive of FEEP (Ferrocarriles del Ecuador Empresa Publica – Ecuadorian Railways Company), we also met up with Paola Gálvez Izquieta, Subsecretaria de Gestión del Ministerio de Turismo (Undersecretary for the Management of the Ministry of Tourism). In fact it is the latter’s organization which in April 2008, together with the Ministry for Heritage, took on the responsibility of revamping and promoting the Ecuadorian rail network, now a recognized cultural heritage asset.
But we didn’t stop there: we also met Quito’s deputy mayor, Jorge Alban, who gave us a detailed insight into the plans to start building the country’s first ever metro line, a project of fundamental importance for a city with an exceptionally high population density afflicted by major setbacks caused by traffic congestion.
Returning to Italy, we have added another piece to our investigation into Italian railways operating on a concession: this month we take a look at the Ferrovie Appulo Lucane (F.A.L.) which operates services between Apulia and Basilicata on a 183-km narrow gauge network.
We interviewed Matteo Colamussi, Chairman of the BoD who told us how the company, until just recently considered the Cinderella of the Apulian railways, has managed to launch an important plan for modernizing the structures and rolling stock, also thanks to financing from the Apulia Region which for many years has been committed to developing rail transport..
Finally, this issue wouldn’t be the same without the usual chat with a member of top management from the RFI Technical Department. This time we spoke to engineer Giuseppe Arcoleo, the person in charge of the Struttura Operativa Armamento ed Opere Civili, who gave us an accurate description of the activities it performs to ensure that the infrastructure made available for services is always safe and in the best possible condition, both in terms of regularity and productivity.
So, as usual this issue is jam-packed with interesting and exclusive articles.
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Over the last few years Rete Ferroviaria Italiana has engineered maintenance activities by creating a structured organization specially dedicated to this aspect.
We met up with the engineer Giuseppe Arcoleo, the person in charge of the Struttura Operativa Armamento ed Opere Civili, who gave us an accurate description of the activities it performs.
“The specialized department I am in charge of,” explains Giuseppe Arcoleo, “is part of the Production-Maintenance Engineering Department. We take care of designing, controlling, monitoring and engineering the maintenance activities aimed at guaranteeing the safety, reliability, availability and maintainability of the rail infrastructure in terms of superstructure and civil works; basically everything to do with the track, from the rail bed to the rails themselves, as well as engineering structures such as bridges, viaducts, tunnels and works for safeguarding and protecting the track”. Defining the activities of the Struttura Operativa is no simple matter, also because it covers some very varied areas of expertise, from defining maintenance programs to the production of technical standards, maintenance criteria and operating procedures, right through to monitoring all the executed activities, without mentioning all the analyses and studies for re-engineering maintenance and logistic processes aimed at improving the quality, reliability and maintainability of the infrastructure while sticking to the assigned costs and objectives.
“We have the responsibility of defining the maintenance programs, drawing up and updating the criteria by which these maintenance operations are carried out based on the relative laws, regulations and adopted standards”, Arcoleo underlines, “furthermore we monitor the maintenance plans for the sector and their application by Regional Directorates. To this already demanding activity we must also add the constant activity involved in the production of technical standards and updates to the rule-making procedures. We identify the need to modify the railway systems and check the resolutions which the Regional Directorates produce in the case of urgent interventions. Last but not least, our department draws up the technical standards on the basis of which new machinery, work vehicles and personal protective equipment typical for the railways are purchased and it develops analyses and studies to improve the engineering of maintenance operations.”
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A project which on the one hand aims to bring the railways back to life purely as a tourist attraction and on the other aims, over time, to create a rail transport culture in the whole population, starting in fact with schools. Four years down the line a great deal has already been done and results have proved that those who believed in the project, which also aims to create economic growth in the regions crossed by the railways, were right. The state of the Ecuadorian network, which had been left abandoned for decades and in terms of infrastructure still dated back to the early 1900s, was such that any idea of immediate reuse for modern passenger and freight services would have meant total and radical reconstruction along a new route. Consequently the government cleverly decided to focus on a recovery program aimed at transforming the technical and historical features of the Ecuadorian railways into a tourist and cultural attraction: one need only consider the interest which the Nariz del Diablo (the Devil’s Nose) track arouses around the world where, to overcome a major gain in altitude, the railway climbs up the side of the mountain thanks to a series of zigzags along which the train shunts back and forth.
We talked about this interesting restoration project with María Belén Molina, deputy chief executive of the FEEP (Ferrocarriles del Ecuador Empresa Publica – Ecuadorian Railways Company) who welcomed us to the railway company’s head office in Chimbacalle, in the southern quarter of Quito.
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