IEC Global Standard: From Concept to Implementation, Sanctions Notwithstanding

An international standard titled "Copper and copper alloy messenger wires for railway overhead contact lines" has been developed and published on August 30, 2023, by Working Group PT 63190 under IEC/TC 9 "Electrical equipment and systems for railways." This group was initiated by the Industrial Technologies Center back in 2015.

The work on the standard spanned over seven years. The primary initiator of the standard's development is General Director Viktor Aleksandrovich Fokin. During the 79th IEC General Assembly in Minsk, a decision was made at Russia's initiative for IEC TC 9 to commence work on this standard. At the start of the work, the working group included representatives from Japan, China, Russia, England, Germany, France, and Belgium. More than thirty in-person and online meetings were conducted. Experts from the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, JSC VNIIZhT, and the Industrial Technologies Center, representing the Russian Federation from the National Technical Committee 045 "Railway Transport," actively participated in the development.

This document defines the characteristics of messenger wires made from copper and copper alloys intended for use in railway overhead contact lines. It establishes the characteristics of messenger wires, the test methods, and the verification procedures to be used. The standard includes not only wires of classic construction but also compacted ones. These are contained in the Russian GOST 32697, as amended in 2019 and previously in 2014. The international standard incorporates the compacted or plastically compressed messenger wire, in which the gaps between individual strands are reduced by mechanical compression. As a result, this construction possesses a number of significant advantages compared to messenger wire constructions used worldwide.