European Passenger Train Timetable Conference
The European Passenger Train Timetable Conference , usually referred to as the European Timetable Conference (SFAO), was responsible for the planning and organization of cross-border long-distance passenger rail transport in Europe from 1872 to 1996 . It was replaced by the Forum Train Europe (FTE), in which the member railways of the SFAO and the European Freight Train Timetable Conference (EGK), which is responsible for freight traffic, have come together.
history
The first cross-border railway lines were built in the early days of railway development in Europe, where the need for timetable coordination by the railway companies involved arose. The oldest of these lines in Germany is the line from Aachen to Liège , which opened in 1843 .
For several decades there was only ever schedule coordination between directly neighboring railway companies. Even at the national level, it was not until 1871 that the first timetable conference took place in Germany. It was not until 1872 that representatives from five European countries met for the first time in Cologne on February 12 . Railway companies from Belgium , the German Empire , France , Austria and Switzerland and jointly set the timetables for international long-distance trains and through carriage runs . The position of the wagons was also agreed by the participating railway companies. From 1874 the timetable conferences took place twice a year. At the turn of the year, the upcoming summer schedule and the next winter schedule in June or July were set. Railway companies from other European countries soon took part in what was initially known as the International Timetable Conference.
From 1879 government representatives from important European countries also took part in the conferences. The railways involved outsourced the provision of wagons to a separate wagon provision conference after a few years due to the large volume . In addition to the railway companies and government representatives, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits also took part in the conferences as the most important operator of sleeping and dining cars . In 1897 the conference changed its name to the European Timetable Conference . As early as 1904, over 250 representatives from almost all European countries took part in the SFAO in Munich , for which they had submitted around 270 applications. Due to the size that has now been achieved, the conferences were divided into various groups in addition to a large plenary session.
In 1909 the SFAO decided in Strasbourg to limit its meeting cycle to one conference per year in future. However, the wagon provision conference responsible for the winter timetable was held from 1910 as a united timetable and wagon provision conference with a limited group of participants. Only the railway companies that had to deal with issues relating to the next winter timetable took part.
The last SFAO before the First World War met on June 10 and 11, 1914 in Bern . During the war there were no more conferences, only the railways of the Central Powers and some neutral states met for two partial conferences in 1915 and 1916.
After the war, the first SFAO met on the initiative of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) in Bern in 1920. A year later, the members decided that the SFAO should meet permanently only once a year. It also received binding statutes for the first time as an association of international private law , which was passed in 1922. In 1923 in Nice, the SBB was designated as the managing railway company for an initial five years.
The last SFAO before the Second World War took place in Budapest from October 10 to 25, 1938 . During the war there were only two partial conferences, 1940 and 1945.
After the war, the SBB invited again for the first time in 1946 to a timetable conference, which took place in Montreux and mainly dealt with the restoration of international train runs.
In 1952, the statutes of the SFAO, which had not been changed since 1923, were revised and the name “European Passenger Train Timetable Conference SFAO” was officially introduced. At the SFAO in Sofia in 1963 , the member railways decided to only meet every two years from 1964 onwards. However, from 1967 onwards, a technical conference took place at the headquarters of the UIC in Paris in the odd years . In the same year, new statutes came into force again. Five years later, the 100th anniversary of the SFAO was celebrated in St. Gallen .
At the SFAO, which took place in Warsaw in 1994, SBB as the managing company was commissioned to examine a possible merger of the two conferences together with ČD as the managing director of the “European Freight Train Timetable Conference EGK”. The reorganization concept presented a year later came into effect on January 1, 1997. Before that, the first joint conference of the SFAO and EGK took place in La Rochelle in September 1996 , at which the conversion and merging of the Forum Train Europe (FTE) was formally decided. The originally intended name Forum Rail Europe was not used due to legal concerns of the SNCF. Under the umbrella of the FTE, the coordination of the railway undertakings (EVU) and the railway infrastructure company (EIU) were increasingly separated.
The deregulation of the European railways, in particular the separation between infrastructure and operations, as decided in Directive 2001/14 / EC as part of the First Railway Package, led to a further redesign of the RTD in 2004. In 2003, the infrastructure operators founded RailNetEurope (RNE), an independent organization, and left the FTE by the end of 2004. Since then, only the RUs, service providers active in rail transport and individual ferry companies have been organized in the FTE.
Major decisions
The SFAO and its successor FTE neither regulate nor regulate the international timetable in all details, even if specific journey times have already been agreed. A major part of the detailed work is carried out in bilateral coordination between the railway companies directly involved. Especially in the past, there were often significant deviations from the SFAO's original specifications. Political changes in the meantime also often had an impact on the respective timetable development. Other resolutions were postponed and ultimately never became a reality, such as the planned introduction of a TEE from Munich to Rome in 1960. Nevertheless, the SFAO has determined the essential framework conditions and times as well as the train formation for European long-distance passenger transport.
At the timetable conference in Interlaken in 1889, it was decided to standardize the various names used previously for high-speed trains and to designate them as express trains if a higher fare was charged .
The SFAO also decided to introduce luxury trains , for example the Rheingold from Amsterdam to Zurich in Prague in 1927 .
From 1950 the European railways were forced to react to the increasingly noticeable competition between cars and air traffic . A major step was the introduction of the Trans-Europ-Express (TEE) proposed to the SFAO in 1953 by the Nederlandse Spoorwegen , which was then implemented in 1957. In addition, the creation of a uniform seat reservation procedure and the standardization of the train types were an essential task. In 1954 the SFAO decided to increase the minimum speed for international express trains to 80 km / h. Most noticeable for the passengers was probably the abolition of the old first class in 1956 and the introduction of the new two-class system, which is also used by most railway companies today.
In 1960, the SFAO, which took place in Leningrad for the first time in the Soviet Union , set the end of the old Orient Express system and decided to discontinue the Simplon Orient Express .
In 1986, the SFAO decided to discontinue the remaining TEE trains and to introduce the two-class Eurocity (EC). In addition to the last TEE trains, the previous international express trains and intercity trains in particular were integrated into the EC network, which was expanded considerably in the following years.
In 1999 the FTE decided to change the Europe-wide timetable no longer at the beginning of the summer timetable in May / June, but in mid-December. For this reason, for the first time in 2002, the annual timetable was changed on December 15, 2002.
tasks
Since its reorganization, the Train Europe forum has taken on a large number of tasks for its member companies. The most important are:
- Development and definition of a coordinated timetable in international rail passenger and freight transport
- Optimization of the locomotive and wagon schedule, rationalization of cross-border train formation
- Development of the European wagon provision plan (EWP)
- Publication of the International Goods Course Book (Livret Indicateur International des Marchandises, LIM)
- Platform for international contacts and cooperation between member companies
Individual evidence
- ↑ WDR: deadline April 20, 2006 - 135 years ago: First German timetable conference starts: "Belt around the loins of the nation" (accessed on October 28, 2011)
- ↑ Dr. Baron v. Röll: Encyclopedia of the Railway System . Second, completely revised edition 1912–1923, Volume 5, p. 1, "Timetable" (accessed on September 21, 2011)
- ^ Allgemeine Zeitung, Tuesday, November 22, 1904 No. 533 (accessed on September 21, 2011)
- ↑ Wilfried Biedenkopf: Across old Europe. The international train and through coach runs as of the summer of 1939. Verlag und Büro für Spezial Verkehrsliteratur Röhr, Krefeld 1981, ISBN 3-88490-110-9 , p. 5 ff.
- ^ Die Zeit, December 16, 1960: Better connection, shorter journey (accessed on October 28, 2011)
- ^ Röll: Encyclopedia of Railways, Express Train (accessed on October 28, 2011)
- ^ Die Zeit, December 16, 1960: Orient-Express on the siding (accessed on October 28, 2011)
- ↑ Services of the RTD (accessed on October 28, 2011)