Building a High-Speed Line, Not a Pleasure Cruise: Experience from Germany
German political reunification in the early 1990s also inspired plans to reunify the country’s infrastructure, including passenger-train service. Successful new high-speed services have resulted from this process, but there were lessons learned along the way.
Planning for new American trains can benefit from this experience. New trains can play an important role in unifying communities in the United States that have not enjoyed good train service or which are affected by other disparities, such as income inequality. We’ll hear from two experts on the German experience.
Speaker Bios
Jorge Rios, Vice President, Deutsche Bahn E.C.O. North America, Project Director CHSRA Early Train Operator
Mr. Rios is an Electronic Engineer, Master in Project management and Certified by the Project Management Institute (PMP). He started his career as a Signaling and Train Control Engineer. During his 27 years of experience Mr. Rios has directed Railways and mobility projects in The Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Germany and USA. He has been working for Technology, Operating, Maintenance and rail Infrastructure development companies such as Deutsche Bahn, Bombardier, Sytecsa, Siemens, NEC and IBM. Currently Mr. Rios is Vice president of DB Engineering Consulting and Operations North America and was appointed as the Project director of the CHSRA Early Train Operator since 2017.
Hayden West, Deutsche Bahn E.C.O. North America, Lead Procurement Advisor CHSRA Early Train Operator
Mr. West holds a bachelor’s degree in International Business Studies with German Language. Following his studies, he started his career as a strategic buyer in the civil aerospace and automobile industries at the companies Rolls-Royce and Siemens. In April 2004 he joined the Deutsche Bahn in Germany as a strategic buyer for high-speed trains and has also worked in retrofit projects for the legacy high-speed train fleet with the European Train Control System (ETCS). Furthermore, his Deutsche Bahn procurement expertise has been successfully demonstrated in projects outside of Germany such as in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and the United Arab Emirates. In January 2019 Mr. West was appointed as Lead Procurement Advisor to DB E.C.O. North America for the CHSRA Early Train Operator.
