Events
ALSTOM to participate at EurailForum conference and exhibition

On June 8-10, rail industry experts and leading regional and national politicians will gather in San Sebastian, Spain, to discuss the on-going development of a single railway system in Europe. The EurailForum conference will focus on the central theme: The European Railway - how to overcome its barriers? Mrs. Loyola de Palacio, Vice President of the European Commission will give the key-note presentation.

Interoperability will be the centre of discussions on June 9 Didier Lapalus of ALSTOM will speak on "Migration from existing signalling to interoperability through ERTMS". Other topics on the agenda include: comparison between the three multi gauge wheelsets; the separation of infrastructure from operators as foreseen by the European Union; Privatisation in this process.

Other conference discussions will focus on: Day 1: European railway systems and the challenges in overcoming the geographical, political and technical barriers; Maglev technology (European and Japanese) will be highlighted. Day 3: European standards and certification, with an exchange of ideas between European and American standards.

An accompanying exhibition will feature rail products and services. A technical visit has been scheduled to the recently launched metro de Bilbao.

This international conference was formerly known as Rail 21 and will be held for the seventh time. This triennial event is a joint project of UEEIV, Union of European Railway Engineer Associations and Europoint. The UEEIV, being an association of twenty European rail engineer associations, will reach thousands of members with this event. Europoint are the organisers of the successful Rail-Tech® Europe conferences and exhibitions in the Netherlands. They have joined forces in order to organise this major event. A number of international associations, such as EIM (European Rail Infrastructure Managers), UIC (International Union of Railways), CER (Community of European Railways) and UNIFE (Union of European Railway Industries), will use this conference as a platform for discussing the opportunities for reaching one future European railway system.