INTRO: Due to be delivered to Austrian Federal Railways from January 2000 is a fleet of up to 400 interoperable main line electrics with the ability to haul passenger trains at up to 230 km/h as well as heavy freight

BYLINE: Ing Bernhard Benes

Project ManagerClass 1016/1116Austrian Federal Railways

IN JANUARY 2000 Austrian Federal Railways will take delivery of the first of a large fleet of main line electric locomotives designed to run well beyond Austria’s borders into Germany and Hungary. So far 75 have been ordered: 50 are Class 1016 locos for domestic services, while 25 are two system locomotives (Class 1116). Options for a further 325 locos are included, bringing the total value to ASch14bn. ÖBB plans to have most of the fleet built as dual-system machines to work primarily on north-south trunk routes passing through Austria.

ÖBB’s board of management set up a project group in October 1996 to develop a main line electric locomotive design that met European interoperability standards. The locos are needed to update ÖBB’s ageing 15 kV 16 2??3 Hz main line traction, which is starting to suffer from operational problems and is becoming unacceptably expensive to maintain.

Tenders were issued in December 1996, and bids returned in February 1997. After five months of negotiations with the bidders, the award for a fleet of Class 1016 and 1116 units went to Siemens Austria. Class 1116 is the dual-system version, having 25 kV 50Hz capability.

The first four locos will be built by Krauss Maffei in Germany, but the bulk of the fleet will be assembled by ÖBB at its works in Linz. They are destined to take over the mixed traffic role now fulfilled by Class 1044, a thyristor-controlled design which has long been ÖBB’s main line workhorse. Their ability to run beyond Austria’s frontiers gives ÖBB the opportunity to exploit future open access operations.

Design of Classes 1016 and 1116 is based on the premiss that both single and dual-system units are essentially the same, the differences being confined to the design and configuration of individual components. This principle was successfully followed with German Railway’s Class 152 with its modular components, and the German loco has been used as a model for the Austrian design. Modular construction also offers substantial benefits in terms of easy maintenance and should give high levels of availability and reliability.

Integral body

The bodyshell is an integral all-welded structure assembled from underframe, sidewalls, cabs and roof sections (Fig 1). Mechanical strength meets the requirements of UIC leaflets 566 and 651 VE, and corrosion-resistance measures are incorporated. In contrast to the Class 152, access to the cabs is via the main equipment room.

The body rests on four Flexicoil springs on each bogie; hydraulic dampers are used to control vertical, transverse and rotational movements. The bogie is of welded frame construction with profiled members. Traction and braking forces are transmitted from the axlebox housing via a guidance link to the bogie frame; the link has been specially designed to suit Austrian operating conditions which include numerous curves.

Transmission of traction and braking forces to the body relies on a Watts linkage to produce a virtual pivot. The linkage is low down in the bogie cross-bearer so that weight transfer between the axles is minimised.

Bogie-mounted motors drive the wheelset through single-stage helical gears and a hollow shaft linked flexibly to the shaft carrying the larger gear at one end and the wheelset at the other. Two brake discs are mounted on a separate shaft parallel to the axle. This allows the mass of the discs and brake pad actuators to be fully suspended, minimising unsprung mass.

The compressor and related equipment are all located in a single module, with most control items on a braking panel. The loco has a two-stage air brake with microprocessor control. The driver’s braking controller can apply the air brakes separately, but normally it would first apply the high performance regenerative/rheostatic brake which will be used for most service applications. The direct acting air brake is controlled electro-pneumatically; the parking brake is spring-applied.

The brake control equipment has an emergency override to guarantee that the train is brought to a halt if a passenger initiates an alarm application. Wheelslide prevention operates on individual axles, finely calculating the brake pressure required to prevent the wheels spinning or locking up. Both flange lubricators and sand distributors are fitted to the leading axles.

The two cabs are pressure-sealed and air-conditioned. The driving position is located on the right, but hostler controls are available on the left. The driver has an LCD colour display for fault diagnosis, which he can also use to record unusual events. The display is used by workshop staff to locate faults.

Electrical equipment

The main traction circuits (Fig 2) comprise four-quadrant controllers, intermediate DC circuit, pulse inverter and three-phase asynchronous motors. Water-cooled GTO thyristors are used for power conversion.

A pair of Type 8e pantographs are fitted, with a third mounted on locos designed to accept 25 kV from the Hungarian Railways’ catenary. The main circuit breaker, matched to the relevant primary voltage, supplies the oil-cooled main transformer slung between the bogies.

For each bogie there are three four-quadrant controllers, two intermediate circuits, and two pulse-width inverters forming a traction bloc in the body of the loco. Individual control of the motors means that the traction circuits are configured so that, should a fault occur in any part of a circuit, it can be switched out, allowing the bogie to remain in use with reduced power. Traction motors are to an air-cooled design with squirrel-cage armatures.

Auxiliaries

There are three systems for auxiliaries. Two auxiliary converters supply 440V at 60Hz via four circuits to cooling and other equipment; two of these circuits have variable frequency, which is set according to the cooling needed by a central control module. Should one of the auxiliary converters fail, circuits can be reconfigured to permit the locomotive to remain in service.

A 200V winding on the main transformer supplies the battery charger, the cab and windscreen heating. For DC equipment a 110V battery with a capacity of 86Ah is available.

Control network

The Class 1016 has an on-board 32-bit computer-based communications network that carries out all control functions. A central control device (ZSG) is linked to drive control devices (ASG). The Train Communication Network (TCN) meets IEC standards and is linked to the multifunction vehicle bus (MVB) on the locomotive, and with the Wire Train Bus (WTB) for exchange of data with the rest of the train. The databuses are duplicated to ensure uninterrupted operation should one of them fail.

Multiple-unit controls are fitted, and provision is also made for push-pull operation.

Sifa train control and Indusi with PCB90 functionality are installed, as is LZB80 inductive train control. Provision is made for future installation of ETCS equipment and CIR-ELKE radio. UIC specified train radio is installed, as is a speedometer with data recorder.

Fire protection equipment has detectors located in the traction inverters, auxiliaries and compressed air modules. o

CAPTION: Fig 1. Class 1016 and 1116 have an integral body design and bogies of 3m wheelbase Siemens

CAPTION: Fig 2. Main traction circuit for one bogie with three four-quadrant controllers and intermediate DC circuits feeding power to a pulse-width inverter for each three-phase motor Siemens

TABLE: Table I. Main data of ÖBB Class 1016

Wheel arrangement Bo-Bo

Power supply 15 kV 16 2??3Hz 25 kV 50Hz

Starting tractive effort kN 300

Continuous rating kW 6400

Short term rating kW 7000

Maximum speed km/h 230

Operational temperature range -25

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