Delegations from EU agency CINEA, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management and the ERTMS programme directorate visited Siemens' Prüfcenter Wegberg-Wildenrath on Friday 27 January, where the prototype was tested.

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Deployment on Key European Freight Corridors

In the future the related ES64F4 locomotives will be deployed on key European freight corridors. The starting point of some of these corridors is the port of Rotterdam. Therefore, the conversion of the locomotives was partly made possible by subsidies from the European Union and the Netherlands.

After conversion, the prototypes were extensively tested at Siemens' test centre. A two-year period of testing and admissions in various European countries will now begin. After the successful completion of these tests and admissions, the rest of the fleet will also be upgraded.

Challenges in European Roll-Out of ERTMS

With these MRCE locomotives the Siemens-Alstom combination is leading the way when it comes to the upgrading to ERTMS baseline 3 of freight locomotives that were designed and built in a period where the TSI-compliance was not in place yet. This makes sharing any lessons learned essential.

MRCE and Siemens-Alstom therefore have used the visit to highlight the challenges in authorisation in the countries located in the deployment area of the locomotives. By doing so, it proved the importance for manufacturers and authorisation providers to work together pragmatically during the migration of ERTMS in the various countries. The presence of the ERTMS coordinator meant a first step could be taken towards the wider sharing of these challenges.

In the photo in front of the ES64F4 locomotive are delegations of  MRCE, Siemens-Alstom, EU agency CINEA, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management and the ERTMS programme directorate.

‘Co-financed by the Connecting Europe Financing Facility of the European Union.’

‘The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Programme direction ERTMS and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union.’