During its General Assembly held on 23 February in Paris, the International Railway History Association IRHA elected its new Board for the coming years.
Ambassador Henry Jacolin, who has successfully chaired the international association for the last 10 years, has decided to resign from his mandate. The General Assembly warmly thanked and congratulated him for his continuous personal commitment and his strong contribution to the expansion of the activities as well as to the development of the international reputation of IRHA during the last decade.
As a sign of respect and gratitude Ambassador Henry Jacolin was unanimously elected Honorary Chairman.
Concerning the new governance, Paul Veron, former UIC Director, Vice Chairman of IRHA, was unanimously elected new Chairman for the next period.
Paul Veron who had participated in the activities of the International Railway History Association since its creation in 2002, was Director of Communications of UIC, the international railway organisation until 2017 and UIC Coordinator for the Middle East Region until 2018.
Three Vice Chairmen were also elected unanimously:
- Prof Javier Vidal Olivares from the University of Alicante (Spain)
- Prof Andrea Giuntini from the University of Modena e Regio Emilia (Italy)
- Prof Dr Ralf Roth from the University of Frankfurt/Main (Germany)
Mrs Marie-Noelle Polino from the Department for History and Heritage of SNCF, was appointed Secretary General of IRHA.
The new treasurer is Pedro Pablo Ortunez Goicolea from Spain.
The new Chief Editor in charge of the newsletter of IRHA is Paul van Heesvelde from Belgium and the new Web Editor Dr Csaba Horvath from Hungary.
UIC is co-founder and continuous partner of the International Railway History Association. It is represented on the IRHA Administration Board.
The main objective is the organisation of international railway history conferences and publication of the communications presented (books, e-books).
The last two historic conferences were successfully organised in November 2016 in cooperation with TCDD and UIC in Istanbul (“From the Baghdad-Bahn to the New Rail Silk Roads – the Euro-Asian Rail links” and in December 2018 jointly organised with SNCF, UIC, the French Defence Ministry and the Hungarian Transport Study Association KTE in Budapest (“Railways in the First World War”) in the presence of Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, UIC Director General.
