Progress on the innovative freight car project

As part of a tender, in 2016 the BMVI awarded a contract for a research project entitled Construction and testing of innovative freight cars on the migration to noise reducing and energy-efficient technologies in freight cars to the working group made up of DB Cargo AG and VTG AG. As part of this project, the working group designed a demonstrator train made up of a total of 12 innovative freight cars no. 54 and eight reference vehicles. Three further existing freight cars were also fitted with automatic couplings. The innovative freight cars will be optimized and further developed in terms of noise and weight reduction on the basis of existing car types. In addition, innovative components such as rubber-sprung bogies, low-noise wheel sets, wheel noise absorbers, noise aprons, electropneumatic brakes and other innovations are being tested and evaluated according to criteria such as noise reduction, energy efficiency and economy. Regular measurements are carried out during field tests. The project is scheduled to end on April 30, 2019.