199411 – Arbon – Australian National South & Western Line CTC Systems: “MOSCAD” Telemetry Equipment & UHF Radio System

World wide, Motorola has had involvement in many large Rail Industry projects. In Europe, Motorola implemented the communications system for the Cross Channel Tunnel, in America, Motorola plays a large part in the development of the ATCS Standard. Closer to home, Motorola supplied the data terminals for the Victorian ASW system.

When Motorola won the Tender for the first signalling project with Australian National, it was the first time that Motorola Australia had been involved in a CTC signalling project. It was a steep learning curve for Motorola personnel with the Project Engineers having to come to grips with a new set of terminology just to begin with. The assistance of AN Engineers and private Consultants was greatly appreciated in the early days of the project.

It is hard to define whether the AN CTC system has been 3 separate projects or just 3 phases of one large project. Each project has built on and extended the concepts developed in the previous project. This gradual refinement has resulted in a system that is reliable and responsive. The Train Controllers now have a system that makes their job easier and the AN Management have been able to realise considerable cost savings by implementing a computer based system.

The maintenance of the system has resulted in AN Technicians having to learn a new set of skills, but they now have a vast array of logging and diagnostic tools at their disposal. This has resulted in field faults being able to be diagnosed from the Workshop or the Train Control Centre before the Technician goes into the field.

Being a computer based system means that expansion of the system and upgrades to it are a matter of changing the software, not complex and costly re-wires of a hard-wired based system. In the future, any changes to the system that AN wish to make can be carried out with a minimum of disruption and cost.