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News from the CIT Expert Group on “Seals”
The CIT Expert Group on “Seals” held a meeting on 6 November 2024, kindly hosted by UIC in Paris. As a reminder, this CIT group is developing international documents for the use of seals on freight wagons so that the freight documents meet the requirements of railway technology, safety and customs rules. The Chairman of the CIT Expert Group on Seals, Jürgen Scholz (DB Cargo AG) first welcomed participating experts Oliver Hopp (Rail Cargo Austria), Christian Valerio (DB Cargo Deutschland), Philip Van den bosch (UIC) as well as Guillaume Murawa (CIT GS), and Romano Pina (SBB Cargo, online).
In 2024, the work of the Expert Group mainly concerned the publication of IRS 40426 on 1 February 2024, as well as the updating of Appendix 1 of the GTM-CIT ‘Checklist for Sealing Wagons’ according to wagon categories, the latest update of which was published on 1 July 2024. A new trilingual information sheet on the ‘Handling of seals’, available in French, English and German in the same document, has also been added to the CIT Products and took effect on 1 July 2024: https://cit-rail.org/en/freight-traffic/products/info-sheet/ .
During the meeting of 6 November, the hypothesis of an approach for waiving the sealing of wagons was raised, which could possibly be integrated into the international regulations by the rail transport companies (waiver on the railway side). If railway undertakings had a specific need for sealing, this could be agreed bilaterally and separately between two railway undertakings. Jürgen Scholz (DB Cargo Deutschland) meanwhile gave an online presentation during the CIM Working Group on 27 November 2024 on the relevance of this proposal with details of this approach.
Finally, a webinar was organised on 19 November 2024 in cooperation with the UIC as part of the ‘Fit For Freight’ event, during which all the documents relating to seals were explained (IRS 40426; CIT products including Info-sheets; questions and answers on seals issues).
The next meeting of the ‘Seals’ Expert Group is planned on 12 March 2025 at CIT headquarters in Bern, and will provide an opportunity to thank the Chairman of the Expert Group, Mr. Scholz, for his support and his fruitful cooperation with CIT over many years prior to his retirement.
CIT GS/GRM - 2024-11-19