On 21 June 2023, the Resilient Railways facing Heavy Rains (RERA-Rain) project team met for the third time in person in Rome. The meeting was generously hosted by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI) in Roma Termini and was led by Rosa Deneb Casquero, UIC Head of Infrastructure, Asset Management and TTI.

The RERA-Rain project comprises of experts from ADIF (Spain), DB Netz (Germany), FTIA (Finland), IP (Portugal), Network Rail (United Kingdom), PKP (Poland), RFI (Italy), RSSB (United Kingdom), SBB CFF FFS (Switzerland), SNCF (France) and Sydney Trains (Australia).

Headed by the UIC Infrastructure Subsystem, in cooperation with the Operations & Safety and Sustainability Units, the RERA-Rain project aims to increase the railway sector’s resilience against extreme and/or unforeseen rainfall and flooding by learning from best practices from around the world. The final outcome of the project will be the development of non-compulsory guidelines which will enhance the infrastructure managers and railway undertaking’s decision-making processes during the occurrence of these kinds of events. For more information on the project, please visit RERA-Rain.

The meeting allowed the project experts to meet the CEMOSA experts in person for the first time. Noemi Jiménez and Concepción Toribio from CEMOSA will be in charge of the project’s development and the drafting of the guidelines.

The project members discussed the RERA-Rain project’s status and benchmarking strategies to obtain information about extreme weather events from around the world. The RFI team also gave a presentation on the RFI Hydrogeological Risk Management Strategies.

A special thanks to Jiménez and Toribio (CEMOSA), Soile Knuuti (FTIA), Brian Haddock and David Quincey (Network Rail), Ivan Agostino and Sara Petrone (RFI), Konstantina Kopsalidou (RSSB), Knut Kuehnast (SBB CFF FFS) and Anas Dabaj (SNCF) for attending in person.