Railway Applications — Environmental conditions for equipment — Part 1: Rolling stock and on-board equipment

Scope

Defines the environmental conditions — altitude, temperature, humidity, air movement, rain, snow and hail, ice, solar radiation, lightning and pollution — under which rolling stock and on-board equipment must operate correctly. It is the reference baseline for specifying and testing vehicle equipment, cited by EN 50155 and used by rolling stock manufacturers, component suppliers and RUs in procurement and type testing. Vibration and shock are covered separately by EN 61373. IEC twin: IEC 62498-1.

EN 50125-1 defines the environmental conditions under which rolling stock and its on-board equipment must operate correctly, covering altitude, ambient temperature range, humidity, air movement, precipitation including rain, snow and hail, ice formation, solar radiation, lightning exposure and pollution levels. It establishes reference environmental classes that equipment suppliers and vehicle manufacturers use to specify and test on-board electronic and electrical equipment, ensuring components will function reliably across the range of climatic conditions found on European railways. The standard is explicitly cited by EN 50155, the electronic equipment standard for rolling stock, which relies on EN 50125-1's environmental classes as the baseline test conditions for on-board electronics; vibration and shock testing, by contrast, is addressed separately by IEC 61373 rather than within this standard. Rolling stock manufacturers, component suppliers and railway undertakings use it during procurement specification and type testing of on-board equipment. The standard is currently under revision, with a draft prEN 50125:2025 in preparation, while the 2014 edition remains the applicable reference in the meantime; its IEC counterpart is IEC 62498-1.