UIC promotes silent railways. In a series of annual workshops UIC reports on progress, in particular on issues concerning retrofitting rolling stock with composite brake blocks. Both political issues (e.g. EU policy, noise differentiated track access charges and freight corridor effects) as well as technical questions (e.g. progress in composite brake block homologation, initial results from the EuropeTrain) will be addressed.

This year’s workshop additionally enlarges the scope to include developments within individual railways and countries. A total of 14 railways/countries will report on progress.

UIC supports several noise projects, such as studies on bearable noise limits, noise annoyance correction factors and follow-up costs of noise abatement. The workshop will include progress reports on this ongoing work.

Finally a panel discussion, including representatives of the EU, CER, UIC as well as the Corridor A (Rotterdam – Genoa) will highlight the current issues and allow workshop attendees to participate in the European noise discussion.
The agenda of the workshop and online registration can be found on the UIC homepage: http://www.uic.org/spip.php?article2804&var_mode=calcul. The deadline for registration is Friday 28 October 2011.
The programme foresees ample time for discussion, and the breaks will allow many opportunities for networking with colleagues from the railway sector as well as government and industry.
The language of the workshop will be in English and the workshop is free of charge.