The high-end imported railway locomotives imported by Romania with heavy investment have been delivered one after another, but they cannot be put into use due to the lag of local supporting systems. Seemingly a new car adaptation malfunction, it actually exposes the remaining shortcomings of the local railway's intelligent transformation, and brings practical challenges to the promotion of the unified train control system in Europe.

The crux of the new car encountering difficulties

Romania has invested 90 million euros to purchase 16 Alstom Traxx electric locomotives. Currently, 5 locomotives have entered the acceptance process, and the first locomotive has been handed over to the local railway passenger company. This locomotive is designed with a speed of 160 kilometers per hour and can pull 16 passenger cars per unit, with industry-leading performance parameters. However, due to issues with the train control system, all new locomotives have been shut down and cannot be put into daily operation. The root cause of the malfunction is not a locomotive quality issue, but rather the fact that the ETCS trackside equipment deployed in Romania for a long time has only been installed and has not been officially put into operation.

Upgrading is caught in a dilemma

The automatic switching system installed on the locomotive cannot adapt to local line conditions and will automatically brake and lock if no effective ground signal is detected. In order to facilitate emergency traffic, the local operator dismantled some trackside responders and used system upgrades to avoid malfunctions. But this method is not universal, and the EU is fully promoting the unified ETCS train control standards, which contradicts the trend of dismantling equipment and upgrading regional rail transit. Keywords: Romanian locomotives, railway upgrades

The entire system can optimize train braking and automatic speed limit, and can increase the train speed from 150 kilometers per hour to 160 kilometers per hour, without seriously wasting infrastructure resources and continuing to drag down the modernization process of Romanian railways.Editor/Min Jing