About two months ago, the Swiss Federal Office for Transport (FOT) indicated that it would stick to its own version of wagon wheel safety rules and appeal an earlier court decision. This came in spite of commonly agreed upon European rules. The Swiss rules are more strict and more costly to implement. Wagon owners are not happy. What exactly distinguishes the Swiss rules from the European ones?
The Swiss rules may not be definitive, since the FOT is still awaiting a new court ruling. This is expected to come in June 2026 at the earliest. In the meantime, rail freight will have to deal with the Swiss approach, even if damaging to the industry.
Wagon owners association UIP shared their analysis of the Swiss and European (JNS) approaches with RailFreight.com, so let’s take a closer look at their findings.
It immediately becomes clear that Switzerland has opted for a less nuanced direction. Bern has chosen to reclassify all tread-braked wheelsets as non-thermostable, regardless of design or performance. By contrast, the JNS only targets specific wheelset types that carry proven risks.
This, according to UIP, allows maintenance resources to be concentrated at the vulnerable wheelsets. The Swiss approach, the association says, disregards established technical standards and creates an additional operational burden and maintenance requirements. The safety benefit of this is questionable.
Wheel diameter
A second important regulatory change concerns the minimum required wheel diameter. A larger diameter should lead to more robust wheels. Here too, Switzerland takes a different approach than the JNS.
Switzerland requires many types of wheelsets to have an increased diameter of 864 millimetres, even if they have no history of failure. It also only looks at the nominal axle load at moments of failure, without considering the prior operational life of a wheelset.. The JNS, by contrast, only requires this when there is a documented history of failure that indicates a risk based on a scientific assessment.
The FOT approach “results in the premature withdrawal of functional wheels and reduces wagon availability”, says UIP. Perfectly safe and functional wheels would have to be replaced.
Inspections and monitoring
UIP also compared the approaches to inspections and monitoring. Switzerland opts for distance-based inspection requirements. This, however, “does not take into account that wagons already undergo maintenance interventions at predictable as well as unscheduled intervals, during which wheelsets are inspected”, says UIP.
The system would lead to thousands of additional dedicated workshop visits. Yet, they would not specifically target the highest-risk wheelsets. This threatens overwhelming workshop capacity in Europe, according to UIP.
“Given Switzerland’s central role in Europe’s north–south freight corridors, this additional workshop demand could affect the availability of wagons used in international traffic. This may have implications for cross-border freight flows such as intermodal traffic between North Sea ports and Italy, chemicals transport and other bulk commodities transiting the Swiss network.”
UIP evidently prefers the JNS approach. It is said to achieve comparable safety outcomes by integrating inspections into existing maintenance workflows. It strengthens safety while maintaining operational feasibility.
Deadlines and timeline
The FOT and JNS also diverge when it comes to implementation deadlines. Initially, the Swiss FOT demanded full implementation by 31 December 2025. This was met by much dismay on the part of the rail freight industry. Switzerland later extended some deadlines to late 2026.
UIP looks much more favourably upon the JNS framework, which establishes differentiated timelines matched to the complexity of each measure. “Immediate action is required where urgently needed (e.g. thermo-stability reclassification) while structural changes affecting large parts of the fleet are phased in until 2027 and 2029. The JNS framework also strengthens the crucial role of ECM certification bodies to assess the implementation of the measures in their ECM audits”, explains UIP.