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Type
Webinar

The future of rail: part 1

Event organised by ICE

Date
18 July 2024
Time
16:00 - 17:15 SAST
Location
Online

This event has now ended

Overview

The history of railways (From the ancient “track roads” to the high-speed trains, the Maglev and the Hyperloop technology)

This lecture will begin with the ancient “track roads” dating back to 600 BC, followed by the emergence of modern railways in the early 19th century with the development of the first steam locomotive. We will then briefly present the development of high-speed rail that revolutionized transportation, including an overview of Maglev and Hyperloop technology. We will conclude with a story about the railway track gauge.

Speaker

Konstantinos Tzanakakis

Konstantinos Tzanakakis

Rail Baltica

operation and maintenance team leader

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Konstantinos Tzanakakis

Konstantinos Tzanakakis received a civil engineering master’s degree from the University of Hannover, Germany, and a master executive MBA from the Athens University of Economics & Business, Greece. Out of his almost 40-year experience in the railway sector, he served as the director of the Greek Railways Organization for eight years. He has also worked in Serbia, being involved in the restructuring of the Serbian Railways between 2011 and 2013. Between 2015 and 2019, he served as a senior railway expert at the Ministry of Transport and Communications in Oman taking care of various railway institutional issues.

Between 2013 and 2014, he made a major contribution to the development of the Oman National Railway Network, while working for the Oman Rail Company. In 2020 and 2021 he was the Project Manager for two railway projects in both Albania and Egypt. Currently, he is working as the operation & maintenance team leader at Rail Baltica, one of the biggest greenfield railway projects in Europe. 

With a strong professional focus on the efficiency of the railway system, he is also the author of the book “The Railway Track and its Long-Term Behaviour” and the book “Managing Risks In The Railway System (A practice oriented guide)” both published by Springer in 2013 and 2021. In recent years, he has been invited as a speaker to several railway congresses; he held various workshops about best practices in track maintenance, and strategies for keeping a high-performance railway track.