This meeting was held on 10 May in Budapest organised by MAV. All the participants, experts from IM companies, are involved in issues with heavier and longer trains.

Chaired by DB Netz, the meeting gave the opportunity to delegates from TrafikVerket, LG, MAV, Banedanmark, Gysev, Adif, PLK and SNCF réseau to share the latest developments regarding the running of heavy and long trains on their network.

Detailed attention was given to the report by Mr JC Martinez from Adif. In Spain, a study has been launched to run trains with at least 55 TEUs on two or more routes from Irun-Madrid and Port Bou-Valencia, similar to the domestic traffic between Madrid-Valencia.

Mr Schultz-Wildelau from DB Netz gave an updated report on the Shift2Rail project: Long Trains working together with the Dynafreight consortium.

Bernard Schmitt, UIC project manager, reported on the kick-off meeting of the Heavy and Long Train Platform held in December 2016 in St Petersburg. He stressed the significant involvement of UIC in the Heavy and Long train issues. He presented the specifications for the benchmarking initiated by the International Heavy Haul Association. He reiterated the workplan of the working group from the freight CEO’s task force on trains from 850 to 1500m.

The need to ensure regular information and coordinate the work was highlighted.
During the lunch break the participants visited the MAV traffic operation centre in Martonvasar.

The second meeting 2017 will take place in Madrid on 17 October at the invitation of Adif.