COLAS RAIL AND TSO CATENAIRES SUCCESSFULLY INDUSTRIALISED CATENARY RENEWAL WITH NEW HIGH OUTPUT RENEWAL TRAINS

In 2017, SNCF Réseau awarded the companies COLAS RAIL (leader) and TSO CATENAIRES, united in a consortium, a major 7 year contract: to renew a large part of the ageing catenary which supplies electricity to the circulating trains on the national railway network.

To take up this hugely technical and physical challenge, the two companies devised a unique solution. In a break with traditional methods, which would consist of working with road/rail machines, they took the lead on the creation of two new different high output renewal trains adapted to the voltage of the line: 25,000V and 1,500V. This innovation relies on specific factory trains, designed and developed for the project with two manufacturers of railway equipment. The trains are made up of different workstations, each dedicated for a particular task, which operate simultaneously and take turns to carry out the entire renewal works.

Thanks to this approach combining safety, mobility and efficiency, COLAS RAIL and TSO CATENAIRES industrialised the renewal of the catenary components. This meant they were able to vastly accelerate the rhythm of production and could confirm, in the second semester of 2021, that they achieved 100 % of the production expected by SNCF Réseau. This project also became a great accelerator of progress in terms of safety and worksite quality. It is a revolution in railway construction and it has already caught the attention of several operators internationally.

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