Tuesday 8 January 2019

UIC and the Spanish Railway Foundation (Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles) held the 6th Training on High-Speed Systems – Level 2 in Madrid

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UIC and the Spanish Railway Foundation (Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles) held the 6th Training on High-Speed Systems – Level 2 at the Railway Museum in Madrid. Five intense days of lectures, technical visits and training on the High-Speed Planner 4.0 developed by the R&D Team of the Railway Foundation, with great interest and positive results.

ADIF and RENFE representatives delivered lecturers on environment: sustainability of high-speed lines, on building a high-speed network from scratch, on the introduction to the spanish railway sector. They were also responsible for the very interesting trip on board the AVE train to Zaragoza, visiting the driver’s cab, Delicias station, the Control Centre as well as the technical visit to Atocha Station, Operational Centre.

We had a very interesting technical visit to the TALGO factory of high-speed rolling stock.
University professors delivered lectures on socio-economic effects of high-speed rail and on innovation in the HSR: key driver for the consumers.
Speakers from Alstom, UIC, SENER, Oc’Via, Korail, EU Agency for Railways, EuskoTren, DB International and FFE alternated during the week to give lessons on their areas of expertise related to high speed.

The High-Speed Planner 4.0 deserves more attention. It is an automated software, developed by the R&D Team of FFE, made of 4 modules: infrastructure, cities & stations, demand and trains which allowed trainees to simulate the implementation of a high-speed line from A to B seen from different points of view, in particular from a railway infrastructure manager, from a railway undertaking, from a governmental institution and from an integrated railway.

The four different points of view resulted in four different implementation plans which have to be negotiated among the players to develop the best one.

The questionnaire feedback was very encouraging as it reflected the commitment of everybody, speakers, organisers, trainees to make the training a success. Among others, comments were:

  • 50% met their expectations and objectives at the training and reported on good balance between topics, training on the simulator and technical visits
  • 60% envisaged a more comprehensive training programme over a longer period
  • 73% requested specific modules on topics like Control Command, TSI specs. evolution, Signalling Systems
  • Ohers recommended fewer presentations and more time for Q&A sessions, more time for the HSR simulator, to give more information on speakers and participants, to audio/video record sessions and give them to participants.

We are now looking forward to the next training seminar in order to make it better.

For further information please contact Paolo de Cicco, Senior Advisor for High-Speed:

decicco

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