REGISTER

Peter Burns

MBA, BAppSci (Elect), FIEAust, FIRSE, CPEng

PYB Consulting

The train queue in its most familiar form – the timetable – has been around since the dawn of railways. From time to time rail authorities have sought to use it as the basis for their safeworking systems. This occurred even in NSW up till the late nineteenth century.

Following some accidents such system went out of favour, replaced by the block working systems we are so familiar with. With the advent of new technology and the introduction of vital computers on board trains, it is perhaps time to re assess what train queues can offer for vital signalling, considering their capabilities in the resource allocation task.

There are those that contend that allocation of resources is the fundamental thing underpinning the practice of modern signalling, as evidenced by the importance of setting a route as precursor to offering authority. But when deconstructed we quickly discover that the resources we have to allocate are really only points and routes themselves.

Are these resources really the building blocks of signalling in general, and junction management in particular that they are said to be?

This paper presents an alternate view by asking the question: how are junctions managed when there is no concept of resources? By abstracting beyond the world of physical points to one relevant to other modes of transport apart from trains, we discover the utility that train queues can offer.

This paper looks at how train queues, the building blocks of the timetable, can be used to manage junctions vitally without the need for traditional central interlockings (abstracted for the purposes of the paper). It will be shown that vital train queues, supported by peer to peer transactions between trains, can provide all that is needed for the safe regulation of trains in a railway. It will be shown that, since the discussion includes junctions without points, the same train queue mechanisms can be used to regulate other modes of transport in controlled corridors.