The UIC-OSJD Joint Group (JG) on the development of International Railway Standards (IRS) held its kick-off meeting last week from 21 – 23 July in Paris. The meeting has promising results since the participants agreed on the JG working (experts) structure and exact work programme at least up to 2018. The JG detected three different groups of the UIC-OSJD leaflets to be analysed and IRS to be produced accordingly.
The start of JG activities made possible the following decisions of the XXX Conference of General Directors of OSJD Railways (20 – 24 April 2015, Prague) and of the 86th UIC General Assembly (6 July 2015, Tokyo).
The JG meeting was attended by representatives of:
- Belarusian Railways (BC)
- JSC NC Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ)
- JSC Russian Railways (RZD)
- OSJD Committee (OSJD)
- UIC Headquarters (UIC)
The JG meeting was chaired by Mr Konstantinov (5th OSJD Commission) and Mr Guidi (UIC Standardisation Platform).
Mr Cau (UIC) informed the participants about the UIC Standardisation Platform activities to develop IRS. In turn, Mr Vopaletsky (OSJD) reported on the decision by the XXX Conference of General Directors of OSJD Railways regarding the establishment of a UIC-OSJD JG, on the analysis of the joint UIC-OSJD leaflets and their transposition into IRS within the framework of the OSJD Commission on Infrastructure and Rolling Stock.
Mr Kazimirov (RZD) spoke out for the need of a common approach for the development of IRS and the meeting agreed on that point.
The participants performed the first draft review of the Terms of Reference (Regalement) for UIC-OSJD JG (presented by Ms Kuznecova, RZD) and agreed to resume during the next meeting. In the meantime, the representatives of the 5th OSJD Commission (Mr Konstantinov) and UIC Standardisation Platform (Mr Kinderis) will collect and circulate comments and opinions in order to approve the Terms of Reference at the next Annual 5th OSJD Commission meeting and by the UIC Standardisation Platform meeting.
Following the proposal of Mr Cau (UIC) and Mr Sergeev (RZD), the OSJD Committee and UIC HQ will develop and adopt as soon as possible a complementary agreement to the MoU between the OSJD and UIC where the matters related to holding and organising JG meetings on IRS development will be described.
The JG participants defined a list of five Joint UIC/OSJD Leaflets for their transposition into IRSs:
OSJD/UIC
535/535-2 “Standardisation and positioning on wagons of steps, end platforms, gangways, handrails, tow hooks, automatic coupler (AC), automatic draw-on coupling and brake valve controls on the UIC member RUs and OSJD member RUs”
524/508-3 “Passenger coaches - General requirements for running gear with dual gauge wheelsets for railways with 1 435 mm and 1 520 mm gauges”
516/430-4 “Wagons. Operation between 1435 mm gauge and 1520 mm gauge networks. Technical provisions and approval conditions”
500/505-6 “General rules for interoperable rolling stock gauges (without unloading freight or disembarking passengers) in cross-border traffic between UIC and OSJD Rus”
502-3/502 family “Special consignments - Provisions concerning the preparation and conveyance of special consignments”
The participants agreed on the need to transpose all leaflets of the 502-x family, regulating the conditions of transport of exceptional goods into one single IRS.
As of today the 516 and 502 leaflets exist only in Russian. UIC HQ and the OSJD committee will equally share the tasks of translating these two leaflets into English for future work.
The JG decided and agreed on the development phases of the IRS based on the current UIC/OSJD joint leaflets, as well as a provisional time frame. The exact dates will be defined by the JG members for each IRS accordingly.
The participants have received the first draft version of the IRS 1501 “Rolling Stock Gauge”. The draft IRS 1501 was officially presented and submitted to the 83rd UIC General Assembly (December 2013); this is nowadays an essential document which encompasses the world’s best practice in the field of standardisation on 1435-1520 railway systems and represents the joint requirements established by IRS.
Mr Cau and Mr Guidi (UIC) stressed that choosing the IRS 1501 “Rolling Stock Gauge” is a matter of principle for railway traffic to be ensured within the Euro-Asian context which has considerable importance in the development of future IRS.
The meeting took a decision concerning the follow up and the scheduling of the work on IRS 1501 “Rolling Stock Gauge” development and to pursue the work on the document on the basis of the first draft of the IRS 1501, work to be done by RZD as the main performer.
Mr Cau and Mr Tieri (UIC) on behalf of UIC Standardisation Platform presented the EUTREQ system and offered to hold a training workshop for OSJD staff on the EUTREQ system (OSJD took note of the offer).
OSJD representatives suggested holding the next meeting at the OSJD Committee headquarters in Warsaw, from 14 – 16 October 2015.
