22.12.05 | A high-tech locomotive from Siemens is making uninterrupted freight transport through the Brenner Pass possible for the first time. This means it will be possible to transfer much more freight from the roads to rail, a breakthrough that can help reduce the heavy road traffic in the region by hundreds of thousands of trucks per year.

In theory, the “four-system” locomotive from Siemens could be used for a run extending from Sweden to southern Italy. In practice, however, a single standardized rail technology has yet to be implemented for all of Europe. Instead, there are four different voltage systems, as well as various types of operating regulations and 22 rail control systems. That’s why the locomotives of trains traveling from Austria to Italy and back previously had to be changed at the border. It was even necessary to change train drivers, because there is still no standardized European locomotive operator's license.

This situation has had a particularly detrimental effect on freight transport, with trains having to pause at the border for a complex switching procedure lasting about one hour. This, of course, represents a major disadvantage as compared to truck freight transport, which is more flexible and also less expensive. Now, however, rail freight transport has regained some competitiveness with the help of the four-system locomotive from Siemens, which can travel as fast as 140 kilometers per hour. Freight trains powered by the new locomotive no longer have to stop at Brenner station on the most important transit route through the Alps.

This improvement is possible thanks to the four different pantographs on the locomotive's roof — one for each of the four voltage systems in Europe. If, for example, a train arrives at Brenner station from Italy, the locomotive operator lowers the “Italian pantograph” and coasts the train into Austria, which is just a few meters away. The “Austrian pantograph” is then raised. Such a system enables more trains to travel on fewer tracks, and rail operators can also employ fewer locomotives for the same route. All of this reduces costs and the burden on the environment. The rail company Lokomotion, which is using the new Siemens trains on the Munich-Verona line, expects to have transported a total of five million tons of freight by the end of 2005, which corresponds to about 200,000 truckloads. (IN 2005.12.4)