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ERA Railway Terminology visual v0 featured

ERA Railway Terminology Collection

Last updated: 12 March 2026

The ERA Railway Terminology Collection gathers terms and abbreviations that are contained in the EU legal framework for railway, technical documents produced by bodies which are engaged in the development of important evolution in the railway system and other relevant glossaries.

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The file you will get by clicking the "Download the full Terminology" button below is in CSV format. To convert it to a readable Excel file:

1. Download the CSV file
2. Open a blank Excel sheet
3. Go to Data → Get Data from CSV → select the CSV file you just downloaded
4. The Excel file will be generated (without any encoding issues)

Starting with "S" (685)

ERA Railway Terminology Collection is a consultation tool, developed to support the sharing of information through the actors involved in running the Single European Railway Area (SERA). The responsibility for the correctness, completeness, accuracy, or reliability of the information in ERA RTC lays upon the authors of the definitions, as they derive from reference documents having their own preparation and approval flow. Users cannot call ERA liable for the use they make of the content. Please consider that when the collection is exported (.csv) and then printed or converted, it becomes uncontrolled.
Term Context Document Type Origin document

SDR

EU Policy

EU Technical Document

Technical document from the Publications Office of the European Union - ‘Style guide’ Coordination Interinstitutional Style Guide - version on 19.04.2022

SDR

International Relations

Convention

Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) Appendix C – Regulations concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Rail (RID)

SdT

EU Policy

EU Technical Document

Technical document from the Publications Office of the European Union - ‘Style guide’ Coordination Interinstitutional Style Guide - version on 19.04.2022

SE

International Standard

ISO

ISO 3166 (en) - Online Browsing Platform (OBP) Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 1: Country code

SE UkrNDNC

International Standard

EU Technical Document

CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025

SEAFO

EU Policy

EU Technical Document

Technical document from the Publications Office of the European Union - ‘Style guide’ Coordination Interinstitutional Style Guide - version on 19.04.2022

Seat-kilometre offered by a passenger rail vehicle

EU Policy

Glossary

Glossary for transport statistics - 6TH EDITION 2026

Latest release

Second alternative offer

RNE Glossary

Glossary

RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2025

Second-best (option, policy)

EU Policy

Glossary

The Social Costs of Transport - February 1997

Secondary critical event (SCE) - right-side

Freight

Glossary

Handbook of scenarios for assessing major chemical accident risks JRC106029 - Ed. 2017

Secondary line

RNE Glossary

Glossary

RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2025

Secondary track

EU Policy

Glossary

Glossary for transport statistics - 6TH EDITION 2026

Latest release

Section

ERTMS

Technical Document

ERTMS/ETCS - Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations - version : 4.0.0 - date 05/07/2023

Section coupon

Withdrawn

Application Guide

TAP TSI Annex B.51 Tariff application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013

Latest release

Section of line (SoL)

Infrastructure

Regulation

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/777 of 16 May 2019 on the common specifications for the register of railway infrastructure and repealing Implementing Decision 2014/880/EU

Section timer

ERTMS

Technical Document

ERTMS/ETCS - Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations - version : 4.0.0 - date 05/07/2023

Section with train detection limitation

Infrastructure

Regulation

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/777 of 16 May 2019 on the common specifications for the register of railway infrastructure and repealing Implementing Decision 2014/880/EU

Sectioning locations

Energy

TSI

Commission Regulation (EU) No 1301/2014 of 18 November 2014 on the technical specifications for interoperability relating to the energy subsystem of the rail system in the Union

Sector Forum Rail (SFR)

Infrastructure

Glossary

European Rail Infrastructure Managers

Sector scheme

Single Market Mutual Recognition Conformity Assessment

Guide

The ‘Blue Guide’ on the implementation of EU product rules 2022