Eva Koinig already joined the project In2Track2 in June 2020 as support for the work package leader.  Now, in the In2Track3 project, she has taken over this role.

– The start of the project was challenging due to the Covid situation and the extension of the pre-project In2Track2 slightly complicated. Many partners could not start with In2Track3 as planned. As a result, some adjustments had to be made, but now everything is back on track and the first mid-term report has already been submitted, says Eva.

She is now the leader of WP1 and responsible for ensuring that all required and agreed objectives are achieved. Coordination with the partners and maintaining communication among the partners are the main focus. Another task of her is the status report on the technical or management boards.

– Of course, the coordination of the different partners is the main focus. In EU projects like In2Track3, it’s imperative to work together with companies and universities from different countries. As you can imagine, this does not always make the situation easy, but in any case, the work is exciting. In my case, there are 11 different partners from 4 different countries working in WP1 together, she says.

WP1 deals with improved turnouts and crossing systems and is divided into 4 tasks. The first deals with switch & crossing condition monitoring methods and maintenance procedures. The second one deals with the virtual model configuration, deployment and evaluation of a Whole System Model Approach and switches & crossing models. The third task focuses on material optimization – more specifically around the optimization of manganese cast frogs. The fourth and last task deals with the S2R switch demonstrator. This has been installed in the rail network and is now being validated and demonstrated under real operating conditions.

– WP1 contributes to the research and development of improved methods for data acquisition, data transmission and data analysis of switches and crossing. Through the In2Track project series, we can now obtain data from the self-developed and installed switch and work on a virtual whole system model with this data. This was only possible through the close cooperation of the partners. We are also producing test versions of manganese cast frogs which will be available to us as demonstrators during the project, she says.

The main goal of WP1 is to bring the technical demonstrators in the framework to the next level of maturity. The overall goal is to develop more reliable components, extend their lifetime, and at the same time increase the availability of the railway infrastructure.

– The people who work on this project are very passionate about their work. It is great to be part of such a project and to gain experience in an EU project like this, Eva says.