Extreme winter conditions marked the beginning of the year and led to heavy snow falls and severe blizzards in Northern and Central and Eastern Europe. Snows made railway traffic difficult, causing delays because trains were not capable to plough the tracks or melt the ice cover off them. The massive snowfalls have also frozen rail points.
Under such unfavourable conditions, it was very difficult to continue the railway operations because of reduced visibility, snow banks and temperatures of up to -250C. The railway components whose operation depends on catenaries can be seriously affected since exposure to such meteorological conditions tends to favour the forming of ice making wired transport impossible.
The now-ending winter has affected each and every component of the railway transport system, from regional passenger traffic, to express, national, international or high-speed traffic. Domestic trains have had delays or have been cancelled, while most of the international trains have been cancelled mainly due to the fact that se-veral border crossings between member states or third countries have been closed, such being the case of Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Russia, all severely hit by strong blizzards.
Maybe it wasn’t this harsh winter, the first after many decades in Europe, that had to sound the alarm for the authorities and the operators. We will definitely see more such winters. But the alarm was rather sound by the poor or even non-existent capacity of the authorities, operators and infrastructure managers to cope with these challenges or to surpass them, as the people living in Northern Europe, Switzerland or Japan do. Europe, especially Eastern Europe, is not ready to face such a winter and to ensure an acceptable traffic given the circumstances.
A minimum analysis of what the ina-dequate preparation in dealing with harsh meteorological conditions means shows that transport operators and passengers alike have been affected by the delays or train cancellations, traffic bottlenecks, trains blocked from 60 minutes to 2 days in a row, total transport blockage and significant damages of the overhead line of electrified networks.
But what are the solutions? First of all, making the train schedule efficient in due time, more precisely, ensuring a minimum of trains to affected areas, secondly, avoiding to put in service passenger trains without previously making sure that snow had been removed from the severely affected lines. It is also necessary to ensure a better dialogue between transport operators and local authorities, increase the number of snow ploughs and of course, prioritizing their intervention and making it more efficient. Another efficient solution could be providing diesel locomotives for the rolling stock fleet in such meteorological conditions, since neither multiple-units nor electric trains could run during blizzards. We can only hope that those involved and entitled to reduce the negative effects of the recently-ended winter would have learnt from this year’s mistakes so that the winter to come would not “catch them off guard” again.
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