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Technical Meeting Papers

Technical Meetings are held three times per year.
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2024 – March – Zhu, Lauro & Nardi – Innovative Tablet Solution for Improving Rail Operation
By: Dr Bin Zhu, Gianluigi Lauro & Federico Nardi
Date Presented: March 12th, 2024

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2024 – March – Sudholz – Passively Active – Warning systems for passive & occupation level crossings in agricultural settings
By: Thomas Sudholz
Date Presented: March 12th, 2024

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


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2024 – March – Robinson – Barriers to innovation in signalling design, verification, and validation
By: Neil Robinson
Date Presented: March 12th, 2024

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


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2024 – March – Moore – Signalling Principles – What are they and where do they come from?
By: Trevor Moore
Date Presented: March 12th, 2024

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


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2024 – March – Khan & Kamarulzaman – FRMCS – Integrated Migration Strategy
By: Obaid Khan & Khairulzaman Kamarulzaman
Date Presented: March 12th, 2024

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


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2024 – March – Alvarez – Case Study – FRMCS Migration Path in Perth
By: Rodrigo Alvarez
Date Presented: March 13th, 2024

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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2024 – August – Burns – Human Factors at Level Crossings
By: Peter Burns
Date Presented: August 21st, 2024

Today’s railway fatalities are arguably more likely to occur at level crossings than in the train collisions we tend to focus most attention on controlling. Designing for level crossing safety can be messy and grey, especially when the dependen


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2024 – August – Boss – Human aspects of managing cyber security in delivering ERTMS
By: John Boss
Date Presented: August 21st, 2024

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


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2022 – November – Youle – Qualitative analysis – the more efficient approach to managing risks SFAIRP
By: Patrick Youle
Date Presented: November 1st, 2022

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


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2022 – November – Hunter – Cybersecurity in the Railway Industry
By: Hugh Hunter
Date Presented: November 1st, 2022

Cybersecurity is a hot topic worldwide with regular attacks being performed against multiple domains.


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1987 – March – Uton – Wellington Proposed Resignalling

Author(s):
Date presented: December 27th, 2015

R.N. Upton Signals Project Engineer New Zealand Railways Wellington is the southern terminus of New Zealandts North Island Railway System handling freight and suburban, provincial and long distance passenger traffic. The suburban area of 90 route kilometres over three lines is electrified at 1600V dc via overhead catenary and is serviced by electric multiple units. The two double track main lines, the North Island Main Trunk and Wairarapa Line converge at Distant Junction, the access to the freight yard two kilometres from the Passenger Terminal. The 10km single track passenger only Johnsonville Line connects directly into the Wellington Platform Junction.

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1991 – Nov – Waller – Presidential Address – A Time of Change

Author(s):
Date presented: December 27th, 2015

J. Waller International President of IRSE J Waller's Presidential Address to the Australian secion of the IRSE, to be read in Brisbane on Saturday 30th 1991.

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2005 – March – Dalton – Redeveloping the Sydney Network

Author(s):
Date presented: December 27th, 2015

David Dalton BE (Civil), MBA Transport lnfrastructure Development Corporation The Transport lnfrastructure Development Corporation will deliver projects which will significantly redevelop the Sydney rail network over the next five years, with the opening of the Epping to Chatswood Rail Line, implementation of the Rail Clearways Program and the opening of new transport interchanges at Parramatta and Chatswood. The majority of the work required to realise these projects will be undertaken by the private sector.

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2015 – March – Moore – Standards and the Signal Engineer

Author(s):
Date presented: December 27th, 2015

Trevor Moore B Eng, MBA, FIRSE, FIEAust Australian Rail Track Corporation Signal Engineers are great users and drafters of signalling standards. This often means that each organisation has their own standard for a subject and national standards are ignored. This paper gives an insight into the process for developing Australian railway signalling standards by the Rail Industry Safety and Standards Board. It also provides an overview of standards developed and under development. The drafting and adoption of national railway signalling standards will assist the development of signalling practices in Australia and the portability of the signalling workforce.

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1989 – April – McCauley – Signalling for the Perth Urban Rail Electrification Project

Author(s):
Date presented: December 27th, 2015

D.E. McCauley FIRSE Manager Signals The existing Perth Urban Passenger Rail System consists of three double track 1067mn1 gauge lines radiating fron City to Fremantle, Midland trnd Armadale. (A eection of single track exists over the Swan River near Belmont Park). The Fremantle to City and Ouildford line was opened in 1681 and cxtc!nded to Midland in 1884, the Armadale line was opened in 1893. Trains on the existing system consist of diesel r a i l cars most of wltich are in a deteriorated condition, in peak hours locomotive hauled saloon car sets supplement the service. In 1984 the Government through the Co-ordinator General of Trana port commissioned an inquiry into the electrification of the Perth Suburban railways, the report, presented in February 1985 resulted in the Government announcing in September 1985 its intention in principle to electrify the suburban system. They then establiehed the Urban Rail Steering Committee comprising representative fron the key Government Departments involved. A project team comprising Westrail and Transperth officers with assistance of consultants was established by the Steering Commitee to produce a Master Plan, this was presented to the Government who accepted the plan and formally announced the commencement of the project on February 14 1988 concurrent with announcing the contract for the Electric Multiple Unit rail car manufacture. This paper describes the signalling system adopted for the project, other papers will describe the Train Control Concepts including the Interlocking Control system and Remote Interface Modules, Train Describer function and the Communications and Train Information Systems.

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1997 – March – Zhang – Simulink Models for Track Circuit System in Railway Signalling System

Author(s):
Date presented: December 27th, 2015

Dr. Jack Zhang Centre for Railway Engineering Central Queensland University The paper presents a Matlab/Simulink based simulator for tract circuit in railway signalling system. The sub-systems in this simulator includes the simulink models for running rails, transmitter, receiver, boosting unit, train occupation and termination circuit. Both time domain waveform and frequency domain spectrum in the track circuit can be observed on the computer screen. To investigate the impact of train position on the receiver signals, the running rail model for a fixed track length is implemented as two variable length track circuit, separated by the moving train. The impacts of track length, boosting unit, and carrier frequency can also be investigated by means of this simulator.  

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1989 – July – Byron – State Rail Data Network

Author(s):
Date presented: December 27th, 2015

JEFF BYRON, M. ENG. SC., B. E. COMMUNICATIONS ENGINEER Digital transmission of information for NSW Railways purposes dates back at least to 1857 when the NSW Electric Telegraph department installed a morse system between South Head,  Sydney and Liverpool. The telegraph department at that time was separate from both the Railways and Post Office, although it utilised railway telegraph system was set up in about 1876. A major purpose of the telegraph was, of course, train safe working. The next major step in NSW Railway data transmission occurred in 1949, when the morse  telegraph system between Sydney and Lithgow was replaced by a teleprinter system. Within the next few years, many more systems were updated, although it was not until 1968 that the last morse system was decommissioned. Teleprinters message switching system was introduced to save retyping messages destined for a location not directly connected to the originator. the teleprinter network remained in service until 1986 when the present message switch (to be discussed later) was introduced. The 1970's saw the introduction in the railways of remote terminals requiring connection to mainframe computers via a data communication network. It was to support this need that the Data Communications section was established.

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2013 – March – Baker – Keeping your eyes on the road

Author(s):
Date presented: December 27th, 2015

Philip Baker MIRSE Aurecon Australia Pty Ltd This paper will examine the challenges for signalling designers that follow from the move of signalling and control systems from the trackside to the cab. A case study will be drawn from the Llanbadarn incident where the train driver’s workload was such that he was perhaps distracted by looking at the ERTMS screen rather than out of the window. The signalling designer had not incorporated a level crossing warning into the ERTMS system so the train entered a level crossing where the booms were not down. Lessons learned and discussion about how we can avoid a similar situation.

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2006 – March – Traynor – Safe Platforms for the Integrated Control of Railways

Author(s):
Date presented: December 27th, 2015

Owen Traynor Technical Director, Westinghouse Rail Systems Australia Much of the material upon which the following discussions and descriptions are based has been produced and developed by the dedicated and talented engineers at Westinghouse Rail Systems Australia. Special thanks go to Brenton Atchison, Alex Boden and Shashi Anantharamaiah.

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2005 – Oct – Ishii & Saito – Technical Trend of Signalling System and Latest LRT Signalling System

Author(s):
Date presented: December 27th, 2015

NORIHIRO ISHII Deputy General Manager Yoshikazu Saito Engineer KYOSAN ELECTRIC MFG. CO., LTD. Railway safety can be said to be a history of troubleshooting. And the world has come to require railways to reinforce convenience and service quality while looking safety as a matter of course. In such circumstances, midsize cities and the suburban areas of large cities are faced with transportation difficulty that demand is not so great as to require railway but cannot be dealt with only by busses and other automobiles. As a new transit system like AGT (Automated Guide way Transit) that is safe and can meet such demand, has been introduced to play an important role in such regions. This paper analyzes the technical trend of signaling system and introduces the newest signaling system that was applied to Singapore Sengkang/Punggol LRT, or an advanced AGT.

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