SILENT FREIGHT AND SILENT TRACK PROJECTS

Noise from moving freight trains is the major environmental concern for Europe's railways and has been the subject of national and co-operative research for a number of years. Using experience gained and tools developed from this research, particularly the rolling noise simulation software TWINS, consortia of railway administrations, universities, consultants and industry successfully developed a number of low noise prototypes in the EU sponsored 4th Framework Brite Euram projects Silent Freight and Silent Track. These projects, which commenced in 1996 and 1997 respectively, had the combined objective of reducing rolling noise from the operation of railway freight vehicles on ballasted track by at least 10 dB(A) by mitigation measures applied at the source. This paper gives the background and conclusions to those projects. For the covering abstract see ITRD E107776.