This document describes the state of knowledge resulting from Urban Rail experiences regarding the design of the axle, and further steps to be investigated.

CEN-CENELEC Guide 26 from 1st of June 2013 or EN 17343:2023 defines Urban Rail Systems.




This document:

— is applicable for the assessment of new axle designs for urban rail vehicles;

— defines EN 13103-1 as basic calculation method 2;

— defines the calculation procedure of an operational index depending on track

layout, payload, mileage, position of the wheelset axle in vehicle. This procedure is based

on the examination of Europe-wide service experiences and calculations made on urban

rail wheelset axles running in Germany 3;

— defines the conditions, reflected in this operational index, under which additional

assessment steps may be needed;

— defines these additional assessment steps, including measurements of bending

and torsion moments to derive load collectives representative of normal in-service

operating conditions and the determination of equivalent stresses.




The design methodologies described in this document have been determined for axles of urban rail rolling stocks running under normal European conditions. If there is any doubt as to whether the railway operating conditions are normal, these methodologies should be adapted.

This document applies to:

— axles defined in EN 13261:2024;

— axles with outboard bearings ;

— powered and non-powered axles;

— solid and hollow axles;

— all track gauges 4.




This document does not apply to tilting vehicles.

The calculation of wheelset axles for special applications (e.g. tamping/lining/levelling machines) may be made according to this document only for the load cases of freerunning and running in train formation. This document does not apply to workload cases. They are calculated separately.

2 When no sufficient technical or operational data is available, EN 13103-1 can be used.

3 This Technical Specification reflects the state of knowledge resulting from Urban Rail experiences regarding the design of the axle, built-on by

subcommittee DIN specially based for this Technical Specification

4 If the gauge is not standard, certain formulae need to be adapted, e.g. according to EN 13103-1:2017+A1:2022