Faiveley Transport Italy to validate “TrainDy”

The UIC says it has identified the existence of substantial demand for international freight trains with an overall tonnage of more than 1200 tonnes.

Against a background of greater road congestion, high oil prices and growing concerns about environmental conservation, continues Europe's premier rail organisation, rail freight transport offers genuine advantages and is continuing to expand.

TrainDy is touted as a major step towards harmonisation of international freight traffic improving freight train performance and efficiency.|The software tool has been specially developed to simulate pneumatic effects and longitudinal forces and it should lead to more unification of international braking modes facilitating the operation of trains in international traffic.

The performance of freight trains would thus be enhanced whilst ensuring that current levels of safety are maintained.

The new TrainDy system simulates all longitudinal force-related parameters with a high level of accuracy, making it possible to calculate complex braking component interaction. The complete manoeuvre of a train can therefore easily be modelled by simply selecting locomotives and wagons from a database, defining track sections and movement conditions based on distance, speed or time.

After the definition of all boundary and initial conditions the system then simulates the resulting pneumatic, speed and longitudinal forces, etc. TrainDy allows the user to define the degrees of freedom of the vehicle components for various calculations (eg longitudinal forces, vertical forces, roll and pitch).

This simulation, continues UIC, offers railway operators the opportunity to calculate the level of safety in relation to longitudinal forces for individual trains. Another advantage is that it reduces the number of test runs, which are very costly. A UIC-approved version of the program should be available by the end of this year.