Mr Eduardo Romo (Fundación Caminos de Hierro) and Mr Baoshi Huo (China Rail) Chairmen of the IRS High Speed Working Group - belonging to the UIC Intercity and High Speed Committee - gave full impetus to the first dedicated meeting to the development of IRS 60682: Design of a High-Speed Railway - Energy - Draft Version 2.0 June 2020 – on 8 September 2020.

UIC is working with a multitude of stakeholders (universities, rail companies, rail consultants) to develop new solutions for the rail community globally with new standards to be released in the next two to three years, including: the IRS 6068x series " Design of a new high-speed rail "is a step-by-step guide covering infrastructure, rolling stock, energy, communications, etc.

The first: IRS 60680: Design of a new HS Railway-Infrastructure - v. 4.1, 11th Ed. 22 June 2020 - was approved by the Committee Plenary on 1 July 2020. It will be submitted for final approval by the Global Passenger Forum.

The dedicated e-meeting, with around 30 experts at the e-table - large delegations from China, Japan and India together with European experts (Sncf, Trafikverket, PKP) - was very productive. During the e-meeting, comments were made on the “Change Request Document” containing about 90 Change Requests (CRs), covering almost all the CRs submitted by the large Japanese delegation. Now the resulting document will be further discussed at the H-S IRS plenary meeting on 16 September and the final results will be presented and discussed at the ICHSC plenary on 17 September with the participation of all members of the European and non-European Committee.

The IRS in question: 60682 - Design of a High-Speed Railway - Energy will be approved in December 2020 (if all goes well) by the members of the Intercity & High-Speed Committee.