THE ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER OF THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OF RAILWAYS n°137 - 1st April 2009

International Railway Statistics

UIC world rail statistics for 2008

UIC has recently published the provisional world rail traffic statistics for 2008, based on the monthly statistics provided by its members. These results are thus an indication of the major trends in passen- ger and freight transport in various regions of the world.

Passenger transport

2008 proved to be a positive year overall for passenger transport in Europe. Growth in 2008 was + 3% compared to 2007 in terms of the number of passengers transported, and nearly 4% in passenger-ki- lometres (number of passengers multiplied by the number of kilometres travelled). Thanks to the ope- ning of a high speed connection between Madrid and Barcelona, RENFE saw its passenger-kilometre results increase by 10%, in spite of a slight decrease in the number of passengers.

In Russia passenger traffic increased by 1%, which partly compensated the decrease recorded in 2007.

Asia’s main rail companies experienced growth all around. In 2008 Japan recorded moderate growth in passenger transport, of around 2.4% (in passenger-kilometres), a growth rate similar to that of pre- vious years. China saw its traffic (in passenger-kilometres) increase by 7%, a slightly lower rate than in previous years, and India’s traffic increased by 11% (compared to 13% in 2007).

source UIC source UIC

1 Freight transport

In Europe, rail freight transport experienced steady decline throughout 2008, exacerbated from Octo- ber onwards by the initial effects of the worldwide economic crisis, which affected all transport activities (air, sea, road and rail). For the European railways the year ended with a 5% decrease (in tonne-kilo- metres) compared to 2007, and all regions are affected.

In the United States, rail freight grew until late October 2008, but the two months that followed cancelled out any earlier increases. North American freight transport ended the year with – 1,7 % growth.

Asia’s main railways recorded positive results in tonne-kilometres in 2008. However, rail freight growth in China decreased by half to + 3,5%. In India freight traffic increased by 8.4%, a growth rate very close to that of 2007 (+ 9.4%).

2008 was good year for rail freight transport in Russia , where the growth rate was + 5%.

source UIC source UIC

For more information please contact Olivier Georger, Senior Adviser - Statistics: [email protected]

n°137 - 1st April March 2009 2 Safety / Level Crossings

Toward a European day for safety at level crossings

On 25th March, the second meeting of the “Awareness Day at Level Crossings” task force took place in the pre- mises of Infrabel in Brussels. The meeting, a task force of the European Level Crossing Forum (ELCF) was chai- red by Simon Fletcher, Coordinator Europe from the UIC Brussels office.

Gathering national experts from both road and rail sec- tors from 20 European countries, EIM, CER, as well as representatives from a number of European instances including DG TREN of the European Commission, the objective of the meeting was to finalise the arrangements for the “European Level Crossing Awareness Campaign” to be held in June 2009.

The awareness campaign is focussed around convergence of a series of national events to all be held on the same date and constructed around a common message: Stop Accidents! Europe for safer level crossings. Each of the participants had the opportunity to detail their national project or the steps they intend to take in June to support the event. They highlighted key points such as the target groups, the methodology, the partnerships, their budget and also what they intend to do to evaluate the success of their campaign. The meeting also welcomed representatives from the CAST team. They had run a three year programme, co-financed by DG TREN, to provide powerful and innovative guidelines to design, im- plement and evaluate traffic safety campaigns. With particular emphasis on project evaluation, they presented the tools they have designed to help assess a project. In the perspective of this campaign and the overall objective of improving the levels of behaviour and thus fewer accidents at level crossings, this was felt to be a useful tool and the meeting agreed to make use of it.

The fundamental aspect of this campaign is publicising the message, so an important aspect on the agenda was spent in defining and implementing a communication strategy to add a European level to these national initiatives addressing users’ behaviour at and around level crossings. The meeting was delighted that DG TREN, already very involved in the project, is to organise a press conference on the date of the event gathering high level representatives from the Commission but also from instances keen to take part in the project such as the European Rail Agency, the European Transport Safety Coun- cil, Members of the European Parliament, the rail operating community, highways and road safety ex- perts and others.

The next meeting of this task force will be held in July 2009 soon after the project, to take stock on the results, assess the effectiveness of such a campaign in terms of media coverage and developing the concept of a global event for 2010 including not only European countries.

For more information please contact the UIC Brussels office: fl[email protected] or [email protected]

n°137 - 1st April 2009 3 Technology & Research

4th Railenergy Workshop "EE Components" successfully held in Berlin on March 18th, 2009

On March 18th, 2009 UIC in cooperation with UNIFE and Bombardier Transportation continued the successful series of Railenergy dissemination events with a workshop about Energy Efficient Components in Berlin.

40 participants, representing European Railway Undertakings and the European railway industry, at- tended this workshop providing an overview about the latest developments on the field of re-use of waste heat and on-board energy storage solutions. The workshop’s main focus was on the industries’ technological developments, whereas the first three workshops were about Railenergy’s theoretical background with the Key Performance Indicators (KPI), Energy Efficient Train Operation and energy saying potentials in the rail infrastructure.

A wide spectrum about Energy Efficient Compo- nents was presented by Markus Klohr, Marcus Lin- demann and Christian Lauszat from Bombardier Transportation, Pierre Prenleloup from Saft Batte- ries S.A. and Jürgen Berger from Voith. Jürgen Becker got the full audience’s attention when pro- posing the “re-implementation” of the “steam-en- gine” for the railways. In this case the Railenergy consortium is not about to replace diesel and elec- tric locomotives by steam-engines but to use the steam-engine technology for re-using waste heat on-board our trains. Following up the discussions of the Railenergy workshop “EE Train Operation” in Rome in October 2008 and the presentation about the Drivers Assistant System – HMI (Human Machine Interface) by Marcus Lindemann, all participants agreed on the high energy saving potentials by Energy Efficient train operation including the EE Driving and Traffic Flow Management.

The 4th Railenergy Workshop “EE Components” attracted mostly UIC members form the rolling stock departments such as SBB, DSB, DB, SNCF and SNCF.

The Railenergy workshops’ intention has been the dissemination of the intermediate project results on the one hand and the feedback by the UIC members to the project on the other hand. The Berlin workshop provided the chance to discuss about the industry’s developments in the joint wor- king groups and further to discuss possible ways of implementation. At the end of the workshop the participants collected new research ideas for further railway research on the field of energy saving potentials. These ideas are used by UIC as input for the discussions within ERRAC and help UIC to shape the ERRAC Roadmap with the ideas and needs co- ming from the members.

The next Railenergy workshop will be held at the Deutsche Bahn Museum in Nuremberg (DB Ver- n°137 - 1st April 2009 4 kehrsmuseum zu Nürnberg) on May 6th, 2009. This workshop will focus on Energy Efficient Traction with presentations about Energy Efficiency integration through modelling, Medium-Frequency Transformer, Superconducting Transformer and Diesel hybrid system with PM-machines and energy storage among others. The online registration for UIC members starts this week.

For more information please contact Enno Wiebe : [email protected] or visit the Railenergy website www.railenergy.org

International Training

4th meeting of the European Network of Rail Training Centres (ENRTC) SNCF Regional Infrastructure training centre (Lyon, France, 12-13 March 2009)

The fourth meeting of the European network of Rail training centres took place in Lyon on 12th and 13th of March 2009, at SNCF facilities.

The key objective of the network, which gathers major European training providers, from both com- mercial and non commercial training centres, is to contribute to the opening of the European rail trai- ning market, by enabling active professional dialogue between rail training professionals to support interoperability.

The meeting was the opportunity for the network to get acquainted with SNCF training policy and acti- vities. Bernard Chrétien, the Director of the Infra SNCF in house management School (Ecole Supé- rieure des Cadres de l’Infrastructure - ESCI) opened the meeting with a presentation about training at the SNCF, with a focus on the Infrastructure activity.

The first morning of the meeting was then dedicated to a workshop “screening of rail training centres in Europe: outlook and perspectives”, organized in order to disseminate and discuss the results of the first phase of the training centre survey initiated by the NRTC.

The Survey which consisted of screening of railway training in Europe is the first step for the develop- ment of benchmarking activities between the training centres.

The IZVW Würzburg University in Germany which was contracted to analyse the data of the network’s screening presented an analysis of the results, which were then discussed between the network mem- bers, a representative of the European Infrastructure Managers (EIM) as well as a representative of the European Railway Agency (ERA).

n°137 - 1st April 2009 5 The final report gives an overview of the results from the group’s analysis (24 training providers) re- garding organisational characteristics, areas of training, policies, training approaches, and intention of future cooperation, as well as a summary and recommendation for further steps towards a more detai- led benchmarking process.

As a result of the exchanges and debates, the network decided to focus the next step of the study on benchmarking activity aiming at the enhancement of the quality and efficiency of railway staff training at European training centres. The network also agreed to concentrate its efforts on specific safety-re- levant roles and positions as well as certain types of training.

The afternoon session of the meeting was dedicated to discussions around further activities and actions for the network partly based on the brainstorm of the morning session, as well as on the exchanges of the previous meetings of the network. It includes the development of a dedicated website for the net- work, which would underpin the activities and enhance the professional dialogue between the training managers, as well as the network’s activities as regards other relevant European Railway stakehol- ders.

The network also supported the idea of organizing regular European conferences on railway training. The first one could take place in 2010, to debate the issues of trainers’ skills , capabilities and assess- ment methodologies.

The e-learning topic is also on the agenda of the network with two ongoing projects: (1) “ERTMS made simple” targeting at all employees in the European railway community who need to understand the basics of ERTMS as a part of the train operation system projects

(2) A co-financed project by EU Leonardo da Vinci programme “Development of common guidelines for a European e-learning module on “safety on or along the tracks” The project is coordinated by the UIC and is in partnership with DB training, Railinfra opleidingen and Mav Baross Gabor training centre.

Eventually, the network was acquainted with the European project INNOTRACK and the new research produced in the area of substructure, rails & welding and switches & crossings.

Bjorn Paulsson, coordinator of the project at the UIC infrastructure department established contacts with the training providers, in view of developing training initiatives to implement the projects’ results.

The last morning of the network meeting was hosted by the Rhône-Alpes Training centre composed of:

1 Training Unit specialized in Operational Management of Traffic which gives advanced courses on tools for Signallers 2 Training Units specialized in the Management of Traffic, using simulators and small scale models of track layouts with trains, signals and barriers 3 Training Units for Maintenance, delive- ring trainings to maintenance workers (first training, refresher modules)

The visit of the different training facilities enabled many exchanges between the SNCF trainers and the network.

n°137 - 1st April 2009 6 An example of pedagogical tool for the training of signallers MISTRAL simulator is a tool used for the training of signallers in the technology and environment of computerized command control base units, in the use of the system in normal and abnormal situations, to develop the know-how in safety traffic

The following companies were represented at the meeting: Amey, Arriva Trains Wales, ARTP (Asso- ciation of Railway Training Providers from the UK), CITEF (Railway Technology Research Centre –Uni- versidad Politecnica de Madrid), Mav Baross Gabor training centre, Norsk Jernbanskole , NS, ÖBB, SNCF infrastructure, SNCF training department, Railinfra opleidingen, Rail training international, REFER, RENFE, RSSB, VR, with representatives of the ERA & the EIM Current chairmanship: DB trai- ning Coordination: UIC

The next meeting of the network is scheduled next October 22nd and 23rd. Venue to be confirmed.

For more information please contact Nathalie Amirault, Senior international training advisor:[email protected]

n°137 - 1st April 2009 7 Communication / Audiovisual

"Corporate Film Days" held at UIC as part of the 17th CineRail international railway film festival

CineRail, the 17th international railway film festival ("Train & Metro on Film") is being held in Paris from 24 March to tonight. This increasingly prominent festival attracts a wide range of travel and train en- thusiasts and, more generally, of people fascinated by all the locations and topics connected to the rail- way sector (railways, stations, railway workers from around the world). Every year CineRail showcases a wide variety of feature films and shorts, television documentaries and corporate films by railway and public transport companies, all presenting the world of trains and railways.

Two CineRail days are held every year at UIC headquarters, showcasing the most recent corporate films. At this year’s event, 56 films were screened on 26 and 27 March. These two days ("Corporate Film days") are a unique opportunity for railways and public transport professionals to discover the best pro- ductions and share their experience as to the effectiveness of audiovisual products. Screenings are held in the presence of film producers and directors.

This year the main corporate film productions once again consisted of institutional communications and advertising campaigns, presentations of major railway projects, campaigns to raise public and staff awa- reness of accident risks, staff training programmes (for commercial posts, crisis management, etc.).

The best corporate films are rewarded every year by an international jury according to criteria such as creativity, originality and effectiveness. The 2009 jury was headed by Fabienne Le Loher (France), as- sisted by Carlos Cipriano (Portugal) and Alain Primatesta (Switzerland).

From left to right: Etienne Mortini (Cinérail), Fabienne Le Loher (one of the jury members, France), Alain Primatesta (jury member, Switzerland), Paul Veron (UIC Communication Director), Mr Cho (representative of Korean Railways) and Luc Aliadère (UIC Chef Executive)

n°137 - 1st April 2009 8 At a ceremony held at UIC on Friday 27 March in the presence of Chief Executive Luc Aliadière, the in- ternational jury awarded the following prizes:

. Golden CineRail prize for Corporate Films: "La Pandilla ADIF" (commissioned by ADIF, Spanish rail- way infrastructure manager),

. Special Jury Prize: "High speed Love" (directed by Hans Van Rooy and produced by Ventoux, Ne- therlands, for UIC),

. External Corporate Communications Prize: "Zwischen Spiel" (commissioned by CFF, Switzerland),

. Internal Corporate Communications Prize: "Embarquement Immédiat" (commissioned by SNCF, France),

. Special Jury Mention (internal communications): "The Cycle of Service Customer Service Training" (commissioned by Yarra Trams, Australia),

. Golden CineRail prize for Advertising Films: "Monumental Environment Congress" (commissioned by VR Group, Finland),

. Special Jury Prize (advertising films): "Marylin" (commissioned by Yarra Trams, Australia).

In addition, UIC awarded a special mention to Korail, the Korean railways, for their creativity in terms of technological and commercial innovation, as illustrated by the film "Boundless Speed KTX" (com- missioned by Korail).

The members of the jury and the winners of the “corporate film days” com- From left to right: Etienne Mortini (Cinérail),Alejandro Garcia petition Calzado (Commissioned by Adif, Spain), Fabienne Le Loher (chairperson of the jury), Alain Primatesta (jury member, Swit- zerland).

n°137 - 1st April 2009 9 Relations with other railway associations

UIC participated to EIM conference: "Structuring the future of Europe’s railways"

EIM organised the 6th edition of its annual conference. This year, the event, which took place in Brussels, focused on how structuring the future of Europe’s railways. Over 150 peo- ple attended the conference, among them in- frastructure managers, government representatives and members of European ins- titutions, such as by Gustav Slameka, Czech Vice Minister of Transport, who delivered the opening speech or the MEPs Silvia Adriana Ticău, Säid El Khadraoui and Boguslaw Libe- radzk. The European Commission was also re- presented by Jonathan Scheele, Director TEN-T and Enrico Grillo-Pasquarelli, Director Inland Transport, who outlined the legislative steps the European Commission is taking.

The different panels debated the proposed revision of the Trans‐European Transport Network and the recently proposed Regulation on Competitive Rail Freight. The conference was based on the theme of corridors, with experts exchanging views on Green Corridors, innovation and good governance, and the best way to link Central and Eastern European countries to international rail corridors. Highlight was put on the need for more investments in the infrastructure and for efficient, sustainable and in particular in- teroperable railway. Improving interoperability across borders is indeed essential and needs to be im- proved.

As Guy Vernieuwe, the Strategy and International Affairs Manager of Infrabel, stressed, “all the nodes network must be chosen in the framework of a global multimodal context”. A better cooperation and ex- change of experiences is also the key to more efficient railways, as Eric Fontanel, UNIFE General Ma- nager, underlined it with the importance to “work together over the borders”.

The conference was closed by Johan Friedrich Colsman, a member of the Cabinet of Antonio Tajani, the European Commissioner responsible for Transport. Giving an overview of the Commission’s priori- ties in transport policy, Mr Colsman said “the European Commission is looking for ways to improve the competitiveness of rail transport, and looks forward to working with all stakeholders to develop an effi- cient and sustainable rail network.”

n°137 - 1st April 2009 10 International cooperation

"Bosphorus Europe Express" container train: connection between Ljubljana and Istanbul in 25 hours

On 16 March the container train named "Bos- phorus Europe Express" set out on its journey for Istanbul, more precisely for the Halkali Container Terminal. This product of the trans- port operators AdriaKombi and Kombiverkehr, offering their services to end-users from Slove- nia, Germany and Turkey, started to operate on the route once a week a year ago. The trans- port performance includes the activities of rail- way undertakings as well as infrastructure managers of Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Bul- garian, and Turkish Railways.

According to the present time table, the train covers a distance of 1577 km in approximately 60 hours. On its way it crosses 5 states; due to different power supply systems (3 kV DC, 25 kV/50 Hz), and clo- sed national railway systems (only two states are EU members), it changes its locomotives 8- times; the train stops at national borders also for the purpose of completing railway adminis- trative and technical formalities (brake test per- formance, repeated drawing-up of documents), as well as for the purpose of carrying out the formalities required by state authorities (cus- toms, phytopathological and veterinary inspec- tions, etc.). The speed of the train must be adapted to different conditions of the infra- structures on the route, i.e. to bottlenecks on the infrastructure (260 km of non-electrified rail- way lines, 200 km of single-track lines where some sections have gradients up to 29 %o).

Three months ago the Railways convened a meeting and started to analyse the possibilities for the train travel time reduction. They focused their efforts on the increase of open line speeds under the pre- sent infrastructure conditions, and on the optimisation of activities at border stations. A contribution to the travel time reduction of this train is made also by introducing an interoperable multi-system loco- motive and diesel locomotive. Under these specific conditions the promotional train will reach its desti- nation within 37 hours.

The promotional run of the train, which has been given a priority along the entire route (as being a non- regular train), should prove that a creative cooperation and a joint will of various entities can lead to a success, while on the other side, tasks will become evident, which will require common solutions, in par- ticular to realise the goals of agreements: European Agreement on Main International Railway Lines (AGC) and European Agreement on Important International Combined Transport Lines and Related Installations (AGTC) - according to which trains stops may be 30 minutes at the maximum. This means a development of joint border stations, at which border formalities are performed simultaneously by the railway and state authorities, in particular, acceptance of trains on trust, development of an electronic n°137 - 1st April 2009 11 consignment note and electronic data transfer (announcement of consignments) between the Railways and Customs authorities (at present this is carried out by means of a fax or e-mail), introducing of interoperability of locomotives. A travel time saving will be achieved on the long- term also by the realisation of the envisaged re- structuring projects on the railway infrastructure from Ljubljana to Halkali; it is estimated that on the long-term, these measures will result in a travel time saving over 6 hours.

The railways would like to improve the quality of their services in the Pan-European corridor no.10 and simultaneously, also its competitiveness against road transport. Transport flows between Turkey and EU countries are an opportunity and a challenge, which the railways must use. According to the statistical data on goods exchange between Turkey and some EU countries (France, Germany, Austria, Italy), show that the goods exchange in 2006 reached 20 million tonnes, however, the railway market share in transport of these goods was only up to 2%.

For more information please contact Mirjam Kastelic: [email protected]

News from UIC Members

Iran: Tehran-Mashad electrification contract and ETCS contract

The Railways of the Islamic Republic of Iran (RAI) finalised in January the process for selecting the winner of the tender for electrification of the Teh- ran-Mashad line. The projects consists in the elec- trification of the Tehran-Mashad double track line within 30 months, with supplying 70 electric loco- motives that will increase the speed from 160 to 200 km/h for passenger trains and 250 km/h for til- ting EMUs, reducing the journey time from 12 to 6 hours for passenger trains and from 7 and a half hours to less than 5 hours for EMUs. The winning consortium for this tender is headed by Hirbodan Co. and other contract partners are Barson, Tam Iranhkhodro and Wagon Pars. Barson and tam will achieve the electrification. Main Tehran’s Railway station

Another tender was related to the implementation of ETCS level 2 for ensuring fast and safe railway ope- ration. This project will enable the gradual introduction of high speed rail, the final –long term- goal being to have less than 3 hours for wide body trains on a dedicated high speed line. The winner of this tender is the Iranian company Maharan (source: RAI).

n°137 - 1st April 2009 12 Spain / Portugal: RENFE and CP launch a regular freight service

CP and RENFE, the two largest rail operators in the Iberian Peninsula, have set up a regular rail trans- port service from the main Portuguese ports of Lisbon, Leixões and Sines to Spain, with three trains a week each way. The service has been named IBERIAN LINK and is the first joint service that has been launched as part of a wide ranging cooperation agreement that has been set up between the two com- panies.

The new service is a viable and efficient alternative to road freight within the Iberian Peninsula, connec- ting the three largest Portuguese ports to Madrid and other Spanish cities.Freight from the ports of Lis- bon, Leixões and Sines is delivered to the Madrid Freight hub the next day and then to the other Spanish cities of Saragossa, Tarragona, Barcelona e Valencia, 24 hours after that.

The service also covers the transport of hazardous goods and products. IBERIAN LINK will be able to haul over 14,000 TEUs (Twenty-foot containers) a year but, if demand grows, the service can be run on a daily basis and will then be able to increase these numbers to 24,000 TEUs.The medium term plans for the two Iberian operators is to expand the range of IBERIAN LINK to markets north of the Py- renees such as France and Germany. Estimated turnover should reach 1 million euros in the first year of operations (nine months) with an annual growth rate of 30% over the next two years.

Environmental gains

IBERIAN LINK’s annual capacity of 14,000 TEUs will take 7,200 trucks off the roads with all the related environmental gains.A recent study by CP shows that rail freight transport between Lisbon and Oporto got 352 thousand trucks off the roads in 2008 alone.The use of rail transport meant that 9.2 million tonnes of CO2, worth 138.5 million euros according to the European carbon market quotations, were not pumped into the atmosphere.

Every signatory to the Kyoto Protocol has to re- duce their CO2 emissions. The countries will have to set up a carbon exchange by 2016 to manage the supply and demand of emissions based on the standards that are defined. The use of more environmentally friendly modes of transport will substantially cut CO2 emissions and help prepare the country to meet its Kyoto targets and increase the quotas that Portugal can sell abroad.

Environmental preservation is becoming an ever more decisive factor in consumer choice for individuals and companies and this is a competitive edge for rail operators over their roadway counterparts.

n°137 - 1st April 2009 13 Slovenian Railways (SZ): Dr. Matija Tasic appointed Director General

On 17 March 2009, the Supervisory Board of Slovenian Railways (SZ) has appointed Dr. Matija Tasic as new Director General of the Slovenian Railway company.

Dr. Matija Tasic was born in January 1955. He gra- duated in physics at the Faculty of Natural sciences and Technology, was awarded a Master’s degree in international marketing and got his doc- torate at the Faculty of Business Administration. In his previous career he was among other responsi- bilities director of Metal Ravne (steel making com- pany), deputy chairman of the management board of Slovenske Zelezarne (Slovenian Ironworks), prosecuting attorney and adviser of the manage- ment board of Metal Ravne, and until 17 March 2009 Mayor of Prevalje Municipality.

UIC warmly congratulates Dr Matija Tasic for his appointment at the head of Slovenian Railways.

Russia-Azerbaidjan: Russian Railways (RZD) to establish joint venture to build Qazvin - Rasht - Astara railway line

Russian Railways, the Iranian Railways Administration and Azeri Railways are to establish a joint ven- ture for the construction of the railway line connecting Qazvin - Rasht - Astara and running between Azer- baijan and Iran.

The parties plan to set up the jv in the near future and will take part on an equal footing, contributing equal amounts of the charter capital.

In November 2008, Russian Railways carried out a feasibility study and sent it to the Iranian Railways Administration and Azeri Railways. At their last meeting in March in St. Petersburg, all three sides ap- proved the study.

Currently, the feasibility study and the founding documents are being finalised in accordance with com- ments made by the parties at the meeting. Upon completion of this work, the parties will meet once again to decide on when the jv will be set up, the beginning of the project documentation and actual construction.

n°137 - 1st April 2009 14 Next Meetings scheduled

02 April 2009: Informational Signalling for Harmonization and Concept Convergence (Malaga) 02-03 April 2009: 50th COLPOFER Conference (Berlin) 02 April 2009: HFWG – Human Factors Working group meeting 03 April 2009: Presentation of the new UIC Leaflet 612 (Paris) 15-16 April 2009: PTR meeting: railway research in Europe (Wien) 16 April 2009: Statistics Steering Committee (Riga) 21 April 2009: Railcom Final Reporting Conference (Paris) 22 April 2009: ERRAC - WP 1 - 22 April 2009 - 2nd Meeting (Brussels) 23-24 April 2009: High Level Freight Meeting UIC / CER (Wien) 23 April 2009: Support Group Regional Assembly Europe 23 April 2009: Assistants of the European Management Committee 23 April 2009: SET 09 EMC meeting (Paris) 27 April 2009: Passenger Steering Committee (Paris) 28 April 2009: Freight Forum (Paris) 28 April 2009: SSMG – Safety System Management Group Meeting (Bruxelles) 28 April 2009: Plenary Committee High Speed 30 April 2009: Freight Steering Committee (Konferenzraum Tokyo. Bahnhof Restaurants Basel.C)

A Complete schedule of UIC meetings (as well as statutory meetings, events, conferences) is available through the UIC website: http://www.uic.asso.fr/meetings/ or from the Home page: “Schedule of meetings”. UIC e-news Editor: Marie Plaud Lay-out: Daniel Tessèdre (Exe: Marija Petkovski) Communications Department, 1st April 2009 Thank you for your comments and suggestions. For any additional e-mail address in your Railway please contact [email protected]

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