Mr. Joachim Mayer, PTR Chairman opened the session and welcomed Mrs. Louise Shaw (ATOC) who replaces Mr. Ian Papworth as the official ATOC representative in the PTR Steering body and the PTR plenary sessions. Mr. Mayer took this opportunity to thank again Mr. Papworth for his active participation in the PTR
works.
Then Mr. Mayer gave some general information on the new UIC organisation and statutes (according to a discussion that he had with Mr. Loubinoux, UIC Director General) and informed the PTR Steering body members that a draft PTR internal regulation should be written by an ad-hoc group and presented in the next PTR Steering Body meeting and plenary session in October 2009.
He also informed on the Regional Assembly Europe held on 15.06.2009. He had the opportunity to present the “PTR Strategy 2020” on which he gave a progress report.
Other important topics have been discussed in the session such as:
1. Noise reduction (progress report on the High level group noise presented by Mr. Gräber). A letter, signed by the RAE Chairman and Vice Chairman, will be prepared by J. Gräber and sent by the end of July to the RAE members (Infrastructure Managers, rail freight operators and integrated companies)
with the demand to finance the project “Optimisation of composite brake blocks contour” already from 2009.
2. Optimisation of composite brake blocks contour and LL brake blocks for S wagons presented by Mr. Guidi.
3. Progress report on the EU FP7, 3rd call presented by Dennis Schut. The PTR priorities and the envisaged UIC role war discussed in detail. The discussion was focused especially on the management and control of fatigue of railway axles in the international railway transport and the ongoing preparation of a related FP7 3rd call project.
4. TecRec MoU between UIC and UNIFE presented by Steffen Jank: a UIC / UNIFE meeting on rail standardisation was held on 24th July, the PTR members will be informed of the results in a near future.
5. Approval process of 2 UIC Leaflets :
a.N° 592 “Intermodal transport units (other than semi-trailers) for vertical transhipment and suitable for carriage on wagons – minimum requirements”: this leaflet will be sent per e-mail in the three UIC languages to all PTR members for a written approval by the end of August 2009.
b.N° 556 “Information transmission in the train (train bus) – general dispositions (5th edition)”. The written approval process has been finalised. The 5th edition will be valid from 1st August 2009.
6. Improvement of the production process of UIC leaflets:
The T&R staff managing the T&R leaflets should contact the small internal UIC working group created lately to put their thoughts in common.
7. New projects proposals and the PTR budget were also intensively discussed in this meeting. It has been stressed that concrete budget procedures should be included in the future PTR internal regulation to be presented also in the October session.
Additionally Mr. Emilio Maestrini, PTR Vice Chairman, made a presentation on the Viareggio (Italy) freight train accident that occurred on 29th June 2009.
The minutes of the last PTR Steering body meeting held on 25th March were approved in the session. The minutes of this meeting should be sent to all PTR Steering Body members by the end of July 2009.
Please note that the next PTR Steering body is foreseen on 14th October (11:00-17:00) followed by the plenary session on 15th October 2009 (09:00-13:00).
Mr. Mayer thanked Mr. Laszlo Tordai for his long professional commitment first at ERRI in Utrecht (Netherlands) and then at the UIC at the Technology and Research Department. This is his last PTR meeting. He intends to leave the UIC at the end of September 2009.
