Railway Applications — Vehicle reference masses

Scope

Defines a harmonised set of vehicle reference masses — dead mass, design and operational masses in working order and under normal and exceptional payload — together with standard payload values for passenger, high-speed and freight vehicles. These definitions are used in the design, testing, acceptance, marking and operation of rail vehicles and underpin mass declarations in TSI conformity assessment, making the standard a common reference for manufacturers, railway undertakings and assessment bodies.

EN 15663 defines a harmonised set of reference vehicle masses -- including dead mass (the mass of the vehicle itself) and the design and operational masses in working order, calculated for both normal and exceptional passenger or cargo payload conditions -- together with standard payload values applicable to passenger, high-speed and freight vehicles. These reference mass definitions give manufacturers, railway undertakings and assessment bodies a single, comparable basis for declaring a vehicle's mass in technical documentation, rather than each party using its own convention. The standard's mass definitions underpin running-dynamics testing, structural load-case assessment, and axle and bogie design load calculations carried out elsewhere in rolling stock engineering, since all of these depend on knowing the vehicle's design and operational mass conditions. It is also the reference used in mass declarations submitted as part of TSI conformity assessment during vehicle type authorisation. The current edition in force is EN 15663:2017+A2:2024.