Railway maintenance is defined as the process of preserving a working condition of a railway equipment, along the track or related to rolling stocks, but there are actually different approach to mantain a railway asset or service..
With CBTC, moving blocks introduce to the concept of contiguous track, because the railway is represented as a single contiguous block, rather than a set of adjacent blocks. This means that the safe separation behind the preceding train is dynamically calculated based on the maximum operating speeds, braking curves and locations of the trains on the alignment. Also, in this way the capacity of the railway is extremely increased.
In railway signalling, capacity can be defined as the maximum number of trains that can pass a given location during a given time period at a specified level of reliability.
Strict safety requirements regulate the development of railway signalling and train control systems, covered by the CENELEC (European Committee for Electro-technical Standardization) EN 5012x rail standards
This paper will drive you across the different phases of the V-cycle for railway application, by explaining the key role of requirements during each phase and presenting the Systems Engineering activities required to support and control product development.
Track circuits contributes for train detection but also for the vehicle’s speed control, since the electrical signals used for train detection can be exchanged between wayside and on-board for the transmission of speed commands.
Since the train can be considered the transport mode of the future, national railway companies and European Union are currently working for a continuos upgrade of sustainable rail transportation, in order to guarantee the best quality of life to European citizens.
Railway signalling can be defined as all systems used to control railway traffic safely, essentially to prevent trains from colliding. Over the years knoledgment and technology able to satisfy this issue have been implemented. ERTMS/ETCS is currently the most common signalling system adopted in Europe.
The infrastructure of the PTC system typically includes five segments; a back office housing servers and databases to receive information related to tracks, train locations, speed limits and work zones, the wayside segment comprising interlocking and right-of-way infrastructure, the onboard segment displaying rolling stock information, the roadway worker protection system, and lastly, the communications segment involving ground-based, land mobile data radio and wireless networks.
Travelling by train is 15 times safer than travelling by car, and one of the main reasons it's so safe is the impressive work of rail management: production, track inspection and maintenance.
Etihad Rail, the developer and operator of the UAE’s national railway network — signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Railway Company, or SAR, that will enhance collaboration and coordination for the rail industry among GCC members.
A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is a type of distributed Bragg reflector constructed in a short segment of optical fiber that reflects particular wavelengths of light and transmits all others. A fiber Bragg grating can be used as sensing elements in optical fiber sensors.
An axle counter acts as a counting head, detecting all the axles of rolling stock travelling on a track and also their direction of travel, using two electronic wheel sensor systems.
The future is going towards railway optical technology, trhough fibre sensing tools for rail track operation. The German railway infrastructure provider DB Netz, and...
The railway signalling market is going to live a very excting year, due to strong technology improvements and expansion of the European systems worldwide.