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John Aitken BE AMIRSE Aitken & Partners, Consulting Engineers In October 1877 Bell published construction details of his telephone invention. A NSW Railway engineer, Mr Cracknell built a copy and transmitted words and music by telephone over the telegraph wire from West Maitland to Sydney in December 1877. It was an era of excitement and delight in engineering. Morse code had become a mature technology, voice systems were spreading and soon de Forest's vacuum tube triode was to make amplification possible. Transmission systems were no longer limited in distance and the engineers had visions of linking the continent by telegraph and telephone. The visions were gradually realised, though not without difficulty and dedication. The work practices of those days would not be considered now'. New engineering problems were found, analysed and solved, as communication systems grew in complexity and expanse. Some of the problems were unique to railways and a few were unique to Australia (at that stage). From these beginnings railway communications have embraced analogue carrier telephony, radio, optical fibre and digital camer systems for radio and cable. Mobrle radio has been implemented for train control, security, maintenance and administration. Some of these developments are described and discussed in this paper.
M. Oldfield Manager Planning & Research Freight Group Queensland Railways In July 1991, the old Railways Act was abolished and a new act, the Transport Infrastructure (Railways) Act of 1991 was endorsed, heralding the beginning of a new commercial Queensland Rail. In order to meet the commercial charter embodied in this Act, the organisation is structured around three fully accountable business units (Freight, Coal and Minerals, Passengers) and three support groups (Corporate Services, Human Resource, Financial). Each business unit has been given control of its own resources and will now be held bottom line accountable. These resources include wagons, locomotives, track sections, terminals, yards and people.
Michael Forbes B. Tech. (Elect.), MIRSE, MIEAust, CPEng ARTC Services Company The Port River Expressway project (PRExy) involved upgrading the road and rail transport corridors to Port Adelaide, installation of two opening Bascule bridges over the Port River – one for road and one for rail, upgrading the rail freight corridor on the LeFevre Peninsula from Port Adelaide to Outer Harbor and installation of a new crossing loop (Bishop Loop) at Wingfield. The project's primary objective was to improve transport efficiency through better access to LeFevre Peninsula for both road and rail traffic, and improving the amenity of the Port Adelaide Centre by the reduction of through traffic, (particularly heavy vehicles and rail freight traffic) and associated noise. This paper discusses the Re-Signalling of the Rail Freight Corridor from Dry Creek to Outer Harbor, and also looks at the changes in technology and equipment on this line since the 1980's.
Tony Simes - TransAdelaide Alistair Morrison - ALSTOM Australia This paper presents the following key topics for the TransAdelaide Control system replacement process: The current situation and the history as to why the existing system needs to be replaced, The expectations and requirements of the various stakeholders of the proposed systems, The proposed solution for the various CTC functions. Support services including maintenance and diagnostic facilities. How the new sytem will be implemented with minimal effect on train operations or related services. This paper will look at various problems and risks and the methods used to mitigate the affects.
Raymond Lowe BEng (Elec) (Hons), AMIRSE, MIEAust, MIE Senior Engineer, Rail Systems ARUP The Cambrian Line re-signalling project is the first UK implementation of the European Train Control System (ETCS) Level 2 and also introduced cab-signalling onto Network Rail infrastructure.In contrast to typical ETCS implementations on new lines elsewhere in Europe, this was an operational single line railway running from the Welsh/English border near Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli operating under Radio Electric Token Block (RETB). As well as ETCS trackside and on-board equipment, the project also introduced to Network Rail infrastructure a new Computer Based Interlocking (CBI), signalling data transmission over the Fixed Telecoms Network (FTN), and cab-signalling operational rules and procedures. Unique interlocking interfaces included ground frames, varying types of level crossings, fringe interface to a mechanical signal box at Sutton Bridge Junction and a flat crossing of the Welsh Highland narrow gauge heritage railway. This paper provides a description of the scope of the project, the challenges faced during implementation, as well as the interesting interfaces and features not typical to ETCS lines installed elsewhere.
Raymond Balck A.I.R.C.E EB Signals Pty. Ltd. For some types of information, people seem to prefer analog presentation compared to digital presentation. This is so particularly for data which needs fast decision making. Good examples are car speedometers which went from analog to digital presentation and back to analog again; wrist watches or other types of watches. I believe most of the people still use analog watches for showing the time. However when it comes to the date, month or other information the manufacturers may put on the watches, the digital information is the ruling one, even though sometimes dates etc. are shown analog. One of the reasons for our tendency to prefer analog presentation of the time may be inherited, the watch is a very old design and goes back to the sundial. Another area where analog presentation seems to be the preferred one is when a comparison is needed, it is easier to visualise a difference or a conflict rather than to read the value of it. However, when an exact value needs to be specified, the digital readout is the governing one. After this short introduction of different ways to present time, it is time to approach the subject for this presentation, Graphic Presentation of Timetables. Graphic presentation of the timetable for a train journey is probably as old as the railway itself. However, when centralised traffic control was introduced, it became one of the operator's tools to keep the train running on time, predict meeting points etc. In the beginning the operator recorded himself by penning the arriving and departure time. Later, different types of recording devices became available, relieving the operator the recording task although he still had to do the predictions of the future running of the train, where to organise meeting between trains, etc. The recording often took place on a paper pre-printed with the current timetable in a graphic form. Today, with the latest computer technology, the presentation of a train graph can be done on paper with laser printers orland on high resolution colour VDU's showing the "pre-printed" timetable, the actual (plotted) timetable and the predicted timetable. Today's train graph recorder can not only record the actual arrival and departure time, it can also do the prediction of the future running of the train; it can produce the source for the printing of the timetable for the public and the employees; it can optimise the utilisation of the use of the track under different conditions such as delayed train, track work etc.; it can produce the best recourse utilisation of the fleet, it can predict power consumption and peak load for electric trains etc.
John Webb BE (Elec), MIEAust COMMSIG Telecommunications companies have been using Optical Fibre for many years. So why did it take those of us in the Railway community in Western Australia so long to see the light? As often happens in Engineering, it takes time before a good idea can become a good Engineering solution. This paper describes how optical fibre became an integral part of Rio Tinto's Pilbara Iron Railway Operations.
Andrew Blakeley-Smith, BSc(Hons), MIEAust, MIRSE Director Andrew Blakeley-Smith & Associates Allan Neilson, BE(Elect), MIPENZ, FIRSE Manager Traction & Electrical Engineering, ONTRACK – (New Zealand Railways Corporation) Earthing & Bonding is an essential element in an a.c. electrification environment to ensure personnel and property safety. It is a highly interdisciplinary and iterative activity in the design process of a new 25kV a.c. railway system and many of the fundamentals are not widely understood - yet the underlying principles do not require much more than a basic appreciation of Ohms Law. Personnel hazards resulting from induction and earth potential rise (EPR) are, in practice, very rare events however care must be taken when focussing on the strict numeric requirements of standards that we do not lose sight of the big picture, both in terms of immediate and consequential hazards. These can only be avoided by a top down approach to earthing and bonding, and therefore compromises in design are inevitable. The design of earthing and bonding systems is well documented by various railway administrations but frequently applied inappropriately as the origin of some of the practices and criteria often seems to have been forgotten. Solutions are frequently subject to subjective philosophical decisions and much faith is often placed in highly accurate modelling derived from input data and assumptions of dubious accuracy. The international signalling fraternity has made great strides in recent times in a top down approach to their contribution to overall rail safety with a consequent harmonizing of standards which the authors would like to see extended to earthing and bonding practice. This paper aims to ensure that all key aspects of this cross-disciplinary subject are understood, reviewing some past historical practices adopted by different rail authorities and sets out parameters for good design and installation practices applicable to both Australia and New Zealand in alignment with contemporary international practice. This paper builds on the paper presented by the authors at the CORE 2008 conference in Perth.
Maurice Taylor Project Safeworking Officer A.S.W. A large part of our responsibility as Train Controllers has been to influence the design of the system to suit the operator. After all we are the ones who will have to live with it from now on. We think that we have done a particularly good job, especially with the graph formatting, sequencing of the windows, selection of graphic colours, room configuration and lighting - all according to established Occupational Health and Safety guidelines. It is our view that the system as developed will ease the overall Train Controller work load while the system implementation will provide other spin off benefits such as an improved communication network. As representatives of the Train Controller section we are also responsible for taking these changes back to our brother Train Controllers and convincing them that this new system is also their future. We involved them, whenever possible, in testing and trialing and acted on their recommendation frequently. We trained them and supervised their first steps into the actual control using the new system. A measure of the success of our mission can be demonstrated by the fact that despite the dramatic changes in work practices and work load, we have managed to introduce the system without any industrial disruptions. One could well understand the Train Controllers being apprehensive of the system, and even abandoning it, in the light of the near disastrous incident - but they haven't. They have assisted and encouraged us in the recovery process to get the system back up and running again and when we are back on line, the system will be a credit to their perseverance.
Wayne McDonald, BE(Elec), MlRSE Manager, Research & Development Westinghouse Brake & Signal Co. (Aust.) Ltd. This paper reviews the particular requirements of an ATP system that enhances the operational safety of a railway in times of increasing cost pressures without materially affecting the normal running of trains. The design of the WESTECT ATP system to be used by Queensland Railways meets these requirements by quickly responding to all changes in the interlocking, trackside onboard.
In this paper, we would like to introduce an innovative proposal based on the research conducted by the Hitachi Rail Innovation team to further improve the existing available tablet application, particularly
This Paper investigates the issues regarding use of passive level crossings for livestock movements in the agricultural industry. This unavoidable practice presents a different risk profile to the typical user, with livestock movement being
I started in signalling more than 30 years ago at British Rail, where I learnt how to design interlockings, initially in relay circuits, and then by programming Solid State Interlockings. This work sparked my interest in safety critical syste
The term signalling principles is often referenced with regards to the design of a signalling system. It is also used as part of the title of a person ‘Principles Verifier’ or ‘Principles Tester’. Some rail managers also reference signalling p
This paper offers a detailed FRMCS integrated migration strategy as a preparatory guide for current GSM-R users, particularly Rail Transport Operators (RTOs), as well as for projects in the planning and developmen
The Public Transport Authority of Western Australia (PTA) is currently building a new mobile radio and backhaul transmission communications network across the Perth metropolitan electrified railway network.
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The Netherlands is rolling out the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) across the national network. The government created a Programme Directorate to manage the rollout. Cyber security for both ERTMS as well as the transportation syst
To support the acceptance of safety risk for configuration changes to railways, systems engineering recognises both qualitative and quantitative hazard and risk assessment methods. Quantitative analysis can be perceived as objective and quali
Cybersecurity is a hot topic worldwide with regular attacks being performed against multiple domains.