Track Expert Group (TEG) meeting at UIC Paris head office

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The TEG is a permanent activity group within the Railway System Forum (RSF) that works on subjects such as track layout, track superstructure design, maintenance strategies/processes, track components and the general evolution of track-related technology. The TEG is currently chaired by Bernhard Knoll (ÖBB) and its secretary is Kurt Demeersseman (Infrabel).

The meeting took place on 20 February with 24 participants in attendance physically at the Paris head office and two further participants online via MS Teams.

The session was opened by the TEG Chair who welcomed the participants.

Subsequently, Franco Iacobini, UIC Chair of the Infrastructure Subsystem Sector, put forward some reflections about the work carried out and the vision for the subsector, together with the PoSE group.

The work is continuing with the following points:

1. Migration of UIC leaflets into IRS (progress reports on: IRS 70701; IRS 70720; IRS 71716, IRS 71721, IRS 71725, IRS 80861, IRS 80864-5; IRS 80864-6; IRS 80865; and Technical Report “Management of rails”)

2. Review of existing IRS every 5 years (decision on the strategy for reviewing IRS 70712 and IRS 70713-1)

3. Exchange of experience on topics, including:

Life cycle and quality index of switches and crossings
Incident and accident investigation procedures
Ballast queries

4. Switch and crossing maintenance (discussion of the possible publication of “The inspection of S&C – State of the art report” carried out in 2011 by UIC working group “Switch & Crossing Maintenance”)

5. OPT-IN 2025 (debating ideas or subjects for new proposals for 2025)

Reusing and/or recycling track components

6. Ongoing projects – Project status of the following projects:

RFID + AVRIS
ReRa-Rain (Heavy Rain)
Drones for Rail – Plain Track
ROB-Inspection
CO2 free
Mitig4Derail

7. Miscellaneous

Collaboration with the Noise and Vibration sector
UIC ongoing narrow gauge study group

Documents published since last meeting:

IRS 80864 5: Technical specification – Permanent Way – Supply of rail pads (only EN for the moment):
https://shop.uic.org/en/808-technical-specifications/14575-technical-specification-permanent-way-supply-of-rail-pads.html

During the afternoon of 21 February, after the Fibre Optics Sensing seminar, UIC activity groups TEG and PoSE held a joint meeting

Each year it is customary for a joint meeting to be organised during the same week as the winter meetings of both groups in Paris. This provides a great opportunity to discuss matters affecting both groups, and infrastructure in general.

Welcome from Franco Iacobini, Infrastructure Chair from RFI

The main topics of the meeting were:

1. General: News from UIC and the UIC Infrastructure migration plan

2. New opt-in proposals and working groups

Opt-in “Bridge-track interaction area, new view of Rail Expansion Devices”;
Opt-in “Reusing and/or recycling infrastructure components”;
Working group proposal “Geotechnical works impacting existing railway infrastructure”.

3. Ongoing projects – Project status: