The railjet Train Sets Have Reached Another Million Kilometres

After reaching another 1.2 million kilometres, the third major renewal in the life cycle of the České dráhy’s railjet units has begun. The renewals of the Czech railjet train sets are carried out together with Austrian trains at the ÖBB Technische Services GmbH plant situated in the Simmering District of the City of Vienna.

"The railjet train sets are very popular among our customers and are used very intensively in the railway transport operation. Each unit travels an average of more than thousand kilometres on a daily basis. It is therefore no surprise that after about 9 years since its entry into regular transport operation, each of our units has reached approximately 3.5 million kilometres and will thus reach the prescribed mileage for delivery to the workshops for the purpose of the planned R2 first substantial repair this year,” says Michal Kraus, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors and Deputy Director General of České dráhy for Servicing Activities.

The first substantial repair is focused on the renewal of cyclically stressed vehicle parts and of the parts with a precisely prescribed service life of specified units, as determined by the railway vehicle manufacturer, e.g. in the form of a maximum number of kilometres reached. This mainly involves the inspection and replacement of prescribed running gear components, replacement of solid (one-piece) wheels, replacement of semipermanent rod coupling systems and other elements related to the traffic and passenger safety.

The repairs and detailed visual inspections of the vehicle interiors are also underway, including prescribed servicing work activities carried out on other structural units and components, such as central power supply system, air conditioning system, doors, closed toilet system, etc. The R2 first substantial repair of the entire seven-car railjet train set in Austria, including the transport of the train set to and from the workshops, takes approximately 3 weeks and ends with a trial run at speeds of up to 250 km/h. The train units are transported to the place of the first substantial repair on regular railjet services operated between Prague and Vienna, which represents an extraordinary combination of two non-traction units with one Taurus locomotive in one train with a length of almost 400 metres and a weight of approximately 750 tonnes.

The first substantial repair of the R2 stage has already been carried out on the unit no. 003, which is to return back to the Prague depot today. During the first half of the year, the R2 first substantial repairs will be carried out on another six units. The České dráhy’s railjets are mainly in operation on the Vindobona Prague – Brno – Vienna – Graz line, but they also cover one pair of services on the Graz – Vienna – Brno – Prague – Berlin route and for operational reasons they have appeared on other train connections in the past as well, e.g. between Prague and Ostrava. All seven units together currently have a mileage exceeding 24.5 million kilometres. This distance represents, for example, 32 round trips to the moon.