SIEMENS

It's a place that a train enthusiast can only dream of. Dozens of trains of the most diverse designs—from all over Europe—stand ready on the tracks. A regional train from the UK's First Scotrail company has no sooner departed than a freight locomotive from France's SNCF arrives to take its place. On the next track, a new commuter train from Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) waits its turn. The high-speed Velaro RUS train from Russia and Spain's Velaro E have also stopped by—and the new ICE high-speed train for Germany's Deutsche Bahn rail company is scheduled to pay a visit early in 2011.

Hidden among farms, fields and forests in western Germany's Rhineland region, about five kilometers from the Dutch border, this is neither a movie set nor an international switching yard. Instead, it's the “Test and Validation Center Wegberg-Wildenrath” (German acronym: PCW), which is part of Siemens' Mobility Division. It also happens to be the world's largest, most modern train inspection and approval facility of its kind.

“The PCW is an internationally recognized inspection facility for rail vehicles, and its tests are government certified and accredited,” explains the center's director, Robert Grootings. At the PCW, subway trains, locomotives, and commuter and regional trains are put on platforms where they are turned, tipped, braked, exposed to power outages and grid overloads. They are also subjected to multi-week runs on a test oval where they travel at up to 160 km/h. The results of each trial are meticulously documented and evaluated.

The facility determines whether braking behavior, tilt angles, safety and electronic systems, and even toilets are technically advanced enough and meet the appropriate standards to allow them to be launched on the market.

This doesn't apply just to Siemens trains, but also to rail vehicles from other manufacturers, who can have their models tested here down to the smallest detail and then approved in accordance with globally-recognized standards. Manufacturers can even test them themselves. “We're part of Siemens, but our independence is the bread and butter of our success,” says Grootings. “In fact, 25 % of the rail vehicles we test aren't Siemens trains.”

Hosting a World of Trains. Siemens established the PCW in 1997 at an approximately 35-ha site formerly used by the UK's Royal Air Force. The facility has two test ovals, one large (6.1 km) and one small (2.5 km), several test tracks, and a total of 28 km of standard gauge track. The site also features several workshops, and two train formation halls in which multiple units can be coupled, up to lengths of up to 220 m.

“Our workforce of approximately 250 can carry out nearly all types of development, type, and unit tests on local, regional, and long-distance trains under standard and extreme conditions, either on stands or in actual motion,” says Grootings. “We can provide this testing for any engineering design, rail vehicle, system, or market—around the clock, 365 days a year.”

Wegberg-Wildenrath has played host to an enormous number of trains from countries as far away as the UK, Bulgaria, Spain, and even Vietnam. Subway trains destined for Munich, Bangkok, and Athens have been approved for operation here, as have trams for Paris and Amsterdam.

Linking Europe. Still, testing so many different types of trains from so many different places at one location under real conditions is easier said than done. Around 25 different signal systems are currently used in Europe alone, for example. And the situation is no less chaotic in terms of the voltages used in individual European countries. But that's no problem for the PCW. “We have several transformers and inverters that enable us to generate the voltage needed for any rail system in the world—and we can also use different types of European signal systems on our test tracks,” says Grootings. The facility is thus not only able to test trains from different countries; thanks to the two voltage segments on its large oval, it can also simulate any number of border crossings using multi-system locomotives—and it can do so once every three minutes.

Such flexibility makes the PCW an ideal location for international train manufacturers to prepare for the future, above and beyond traditional testing procedures. This is all the more important given the fact that the new European Train Control System (ETCS) is set to gradually eliminate the hodgepodge of signaling technologies across the continent after it's introduced in 2014.

“ETCS will make it possible for trains to cross borders easily and without having to switch locomotives, which takes a lot of time,” says Franz Eßer, who is responsible for ETCS retrofitting for locomotives. The new Europe-wide guidance setup will not only lead to a replacement of train signal and communication systems but also control infrastructures along rail lines.

This will be a very complex process, says Eßer: “Antennas, radar systems, and the signal receiving devices used to recognize trains and determine their positions are just a few of the components that will have to be replaced in every train and along every route in Europe within the ETCS framework.” These systems are being produced throughout Europe by various manufacturers, including Alstom, Bombardier, and Siemens. “This means all devices in Europe must be compatible with one another. PCW's testing facilities are perfect for ensuring that.”

The different voltage sections on the large test oval allow rail experts to optimally test the interaction between various ETCS systems. “If all goes well, we'll be able to simulate the route between Denmark and Italy in nine minutes, which would be a world record,” Eßer reports.

Precise Positioning. Rail systems aren't the only things that will be tested at PCW over the next few years. The facility will also soon be taking a close look at satellite signals. That's because the Galileo satellite navigation system is scheduled to enter service in 2013, and it will then outperform today's GPS in terms of reliability and precision. Galileo will be able to determine a vehicle's position with a granularity of less than one meter. By comparison, the civilian GPS system is only accurate to within 10 to 15 m.

Rail companies have now joined automakers in their enthusiasm for Galileo, because such precision makes it possible to realize completely new types of rail traffic positioning and safety systems. “Safety plays a key role in rail management,” says Martin Pölöskey from Automotive Innovation Center in Aachen, Germany. “Galileo's precision, in combination with driving assistance systems, will enable train intervals to be substantially shortened, which means more trains can travel along a single rail corridor during a given period of time.”

To ensure that such applications will be ready when Galileo is launched, Pölöskey and a transport consortium led by RWTH Aachen University are now planning a project for road traffic applications, and an endurance test for airborne signals that is scheduled to start at the PCW in 2011. The signals will be produced by “pseudolites,” palm-sized transmitters mounted on masts about 30 m high at the PCW. “The pseudolites will simulate Galileo signals,” Pölöskey explains. “These will be received by onboard units in test trains, which we will equip with different types of software and applications, creating ideal conditions for the development of various navigation-based systems. Along with shorter train intervals, this will allow us to, for example, produce a system for automatic train shunting.”

After ETCS becomes established, Galileo and its precise positioning function will help to ensure detailed monitoring of train traffic throughout Europe. Then, when trains from Scotrail, NS, SNCF, and Deutsche Bahn meet, it won't be in Wegberg-Wildenrath, but instead at stations all over the European continent.