The experience of Spain can be very useful for Ukrainians, reports Railfreight.com. After all, Spanish railway workers also use a wide track. There, the distance between the rails is 1600 mm, that is, the difference is even greater than between the Ukrainian and the European standard. So it is not surprising that Ukraine wants to cooperate with its colleagues, who are on the opposite side of the European Union.
The other day, the Chairman of the Board of Ukrzaliznytsia Yevhen Lyashchenko met with the delegation of the Spanish government led by Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Investments Siana Mendez. UZ representatives noted that Spain has been building a parallel network equipped with a standard gauge of 1,480 mm for the past three decades. Ukraine intends to follow the same path.
During the meeting, the Spanish delegation showed how the country's infrastructure is managed by the local railway company. The parties discussed the "launch of a pilot project of cooperation between Spanish and Ukrainian companies". The introduction of a system of variable track width will allow Ukrainian rolling stock to run on the European network without overloading standard gauge wagons.
Variable gauge systems allow trains to run through a "track gap". For this, they must have special carts equipped with variable track wheel pairs containing a variable track axle. Transition from one track to another is possible thanks to special technical solutions, experts explain.
Therefore, it is necessary to build carriages with special interchangeable bogies, as well as relatively short sections for the transition between 1520 and 1480 mm tracks. Then it remains only to replace the locomotive, but this is much faster than passing the entire rolling stock through the transshipment center. This is how it works on the border between Spain and France, and soon it may work on the western borders of Ukraine.