Digital automatic coupler news
DAC is intended to provide a physical automatic centre coupling between wagons and locomotives, with electrical and data connections to support a variety of digital functions. DAC is being widely hailed as a game changer that will boost the efficiency of rail freight and revitalise wagonload operations across Europe, and work is underway to finalise the standards and develop migration strategies.
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Technology: Innovation must come faster
Wheel-rail interaction and the need to accelerate the pace of innovation were hot topics at the 48th Conference on Modern Rolling Stock held in Graz on September 17-19. Reinhard Christeller reports.
Comment: Green credentials on the line
The European Commission’s Greening Freight proposals reiterate the EU’s commitment to growing rail’s share of the logistics chain, but they also set out the challenge the sector will face amid the complexity and cost of building new infrastructure, and as measures are adopted to aid the decarbonisation of competing modes.
Train Control: Say goodbye to lineside hardware with satellites and digital comms
A marriage of satellite communications with fully digital train control could eliminate lineside signals and related equipment, achieving huge savings and making the rail mode more affordable. Preliminary trials are already in progress.
Pop-up workshops to retrofit digital automatic couplers
EUROPE: With around 500 000 European wagons needing to be equipped with digital automatic couplers by 2030, Deutsche Bahn is to deploy ‘pop-up’ mobile workshop tents where the work can be undertaken quickly and near where wagons are used, for example at industrial customers’ sites.
Viewpoint: We cannot afford another failure
The European rail sector risks sleepwalking into an existential crisis if it cannot accelerate the funding and deployment of the Digital Automatic Coupler, argues Dr Jürgen Wilder of Knorr-Bremse.
Competitive Freight Wagon aims to boost rail freight
INNOTRANS: On show in Berlin is a prototype four-wheeled intermodal wagon intended to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of rail freight.