Railway Applications — Line categories for managing interface between load limits

Scope

Specifies the classification of railway lines into line categories, based on axle load and mass per unit length, and the corresponding categorisation of vehicles, providing the method for checking static compatibility between vehicle load limits and infrastructure load capacity on standard and wider gauge heavy rail lines. Its line categories are the common language used by infrastructure managers to publish route load capability and by railway undertakings and vehicle designers for route compatibility checks, and are referenced in the Infrastructure TSI and RINF. The 2021 edition supersedes EN 15528:2015.

EN 15528 specifies the classification of railway lines into line categories based on the axle load and mass per unit length they can support, together with the corresponding categorisation of vehicles by their static and quasi-static load characteristics, giving a standard method for checking compatibility between a vehicle's load limits and a line's load-bearing capacity. Its line categories provide a common technical language that infrastructure managers use to publish the load capability of their routes and that railway undertakings and vehicle designers use to verify that a given vehicle is permitted to operate on a given line without exceeding its structural limits. The line categories defined in this standard are referenced directly in the Infrastructure TSI and are the basis of the load-related parameters that infrastructure managers report in the register of infrastructure (RINF), linking the standard directly into the EU's route-compatibility-checking framework. It applies to standard and wider-gauge heavy rail lines, and its categorisation method is distinct from, though complementary to, the separate gauge calculation methodology used elsewhere in the sector, since load capability and physical clearance are assessed independently. The 2021 edition supersedes the earlier EN 15528:2015 and is the version currently applied for line categorisation and vehicle compatibility checks.