The MAINLINE European railway project coordinated by UIC with support from ARTTIC and funded under the 7th Framework Programme is now in its third and final year.
The objective of the project is to develop methods and tools contributing to an improved railway system by taking into consideration the whole life of specific infrastructure – tunnels, bridges, track, switches & crossings, earthworks and retaining walls.

The results of the project will enable a more effective planning of maintenance by the railway Infrastructure Managers (IMs). IMs will have access to new and improved renewal/strengthening/refurbishment solutions. MAINLINE will also provide them with evaluation tools capable of accurately comparing cost-efficiency on a whole life basis, taking into account traffic situation, environmental and economic criteria for specific assets.

The result produced so far is promising and the MAINLINE project is also keeping the foreseen time schedule and plans to end in September 2014.

In 2013 MAINLINE organised its first public event, a common workshop with another EU project, SMARTRAIL, funded under the same theme “Cost-effective improvement of rail transport infrastructure”. This workshop helped to identify common work areas and to set up meetings and efficient exchanges of data and deliverables.

As work progressed and the first results were available, MAINLINE partners attended many international events to present the project, including Bridges Asia Conference, Roads Australia Summit, Railway Solutions Asia, IABSE Conference, Railway Engineering Conference and European Transport Conference.

To start 2014 MAINLINE had the opportunity to attend a UIC Track and Structure joint meeting in January. The members of the Track Expert Group (TEG) and of the Panel of Structural Experts (PoSE) were informed about project progress – methods for life extension and replacement of elderly infrastructure as well as development of the Life Cycle Assessment Tools – and planned events for the coming months.

MAINLINE will indeed organise three events in 2014 to communicate its results.

• Workshop for Central and Eastern Europe life extension, exchange and monitoring, Life Cycle Assessment Tool (LCAT): 15 May 2014 in Budapest

• Training session for the use of the Life Cycle Assessment Tool
• 1st step: from 11 – 12 June in London
• 2nd step: from 11 – 12 September at UIC in Paris

• Final workshop presenting all the results of the project (LCAT, guidelines): 30 September 2014 in Paris

MAINLINE will also participate in a mini symposium at IABMAS 2014 in Shanghai in July:

http://www.iabmas2014.org/page.asp?id=28

Please visit the MAINLINE website:http://www.mainline-project.eu/What-s-new.html