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Safety & Security

 

Railways face continued growth in passenger ridership numbers and increased demand for rail freight operations. To cope, rail systems must adapt to their changing environment and provide networks that are both safe and secure.

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Track21: Railway track research for the 21st century

6 April 2011 | By William Powrie, Professor of Geotechnical Engineering and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton and Tony Leyland, Project Coordinator for Track21 and Secretary of the Rail Research UK Association (RRUK-A)

Track21 is a major new research programme funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) with the aim of developing the fundamental science needed to bring about a step-change improvement in the performance of the UK’s railway track system. Led by Professor William Powrie of the University of…

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Electrification to prompt surge in demand for cables

15 February 2011 | By James Abbott, Technical Editor

Cables have applications all across the railway industry. Increasing interest in electrification implies extra demand for cables. Electrified railways are the way forward for the future, as they are cleaner and cheaper to operate than diesel. Another key point is that they are able to draw their power from any…

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Polish State Railways: Achieving a successful first GSM-R link

15 February 2011 | By Kris Przelaskowski, Retired Senior Signalling Engineer

In the past, Poland (with its 23,000km railway network) badly needed a good operational radio communication system. The first simple analogue system started in 1972 connecting the harbours of Gdynia and Gdansk with Silesia. The radio-telephone network has provided good communication between dispatchers and running trains along the whole route…

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Innovation is important for Network Rail

10 December 2010 | By Steve Yianni, Director of Engineering, Network Rail and Global Railway Review Editorial Board Member

Over the last decade, the UK’s railways have been transformed. When we took over from Railtrack in 2002, we took over a railway that had lost the confidence of the nation. Ten years ago punctuality was running at 79% while the number of broken rails approached 1,000. Today, nearly 94%…

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The management process for EMC at Network Rail

10 December 2010 | By Maya Petkova, Principal EMC Engineer, Network Rail

The railway is a highly complex system relying on a vast number of electrical and mechanical components working properly together to keep the 24,000 trains that operate in Great Britain running safely, reliably and efficiently. Every minute, thousands of electrical components are called upon to carry out critical functions to…

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Shipshape and Bristol fashion

10 December 2010 | By Dave Curtis, General Manager, Freightliner Maintenance Ltd

Freightliner Maintenance Ltd (FML) faced significant challenges to turn an abandoned freight terminal into a fully-functioning railport for a customer running liquid products. In an interview for Global Railway Review, Dave Curtis, General Manager of FML, explains the work involved with this important project and also the success so far…

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East Coast introduces CCTV to its train fleet

10 December 2010 | By Ian Duncan, Engineering Director, East Coast

‘Watching out for you’ – that’s East Coast’s message to customers as we roll out new CCTV cameras across our fleet. The installation of the cameras, which is expected to be complete by the end of 2010, will see a total of 1,621 CCTV cameras fitted across East Coast’s 43…

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The role of the European Railway Agency for ERTMS – answering the challenge

10 December 2010 | By Pio Guido, Head of the ERTMS Unit, European Railway Agency (ERA)

Railways epitomise the triumph of engineering. From the early exploits of technological progress in the Victorian age, to the most recent speed records, from the age of steam power to the age of power semiconductors, engineering prowess has always been closely associated with the railway world. Engineers have been successful…

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Innovation and experience

10 December 2010 | By AF Group

The ÅF Group is a leader in technical consulting, with expertise founded on more than a century of experience. The ÅF Group offers highly qualified services and solutions for industrial processes, infrastructure projects and the development of products and IT systems. Today, the ÅF Group has approximately 4,000 employees. The…

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Deploying Neopul’s know-how in Dublin

10 December 2010 | By Paulo Jorge Ribeiro Corte Real de Oliveira, Project Manager, Neopul

This report describes Neopul’s work on the Luas b1-400 extension of the Green Line from the Sandyford depot to Cherrywood industrial estate, which was opened to the public on 16 October 2010. The green line was the existing connection from Dublin city centre (St. Stephen’s Green Station) and the recent…

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Winter delays and disruption – combating the cold

20 September 2010 | By Gunnar Malm, Director General, Trafikverket – the Swedish Transport Administration

The hard winter of 2009/2010 led to major disruptions to train services in Sweden. In April 2010, the Swedish Transport Administration initiated an inquiry intended to show how great the delays were that affected passenger and goods services, how great a cost to society they entailed, what caused the delays,…

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Measuring and modelling safety risk on GB’s mainline railways

17 September 2010 | By Ben Gilmartin, Senior Safety Risk Analyst, Safety Knowledge and Planning, Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB)

The mainline railway in Great Britain has a responsibility to understand and measure safety risk to be able to manage safety of its operations properly. However, the task of quantifying levels of safety meaningfully can be difficult, especially for those rare accidents with potential for serious consequences. RSSB’s Safety Risk…

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Predicting the future for switches and crossings

17 September 2010 | By Ian Coleman & Andrew Cornish, Network Rail PhD Students (Switches and Crossings) at the Future Railway Research Centre, Imperial College London

Maintaining and renewing the thousands of switches and crossings (or ‘S&C’ and also known as railway points and/or turnouts) across Britain’s rail network is an expensive business, costing hundreds of millions of pounds every year. Gaining a better understanding of the dynamic forces that occur when a train passes over…

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Taking the ‘action not reaction’ future approach

4 August 2010 | By Philippe Gauderon, Head of SBB Infrastructure and Member of the SBB Management Board

Most of the SBB rail network is in good condition. That was the conclusion of an external survey commissioned by SBB and published in February 2010. Future maintenance and renewal of the rail infrastructure will cost significantly more than was previously assumed. SBB Infrastructure has embarked on a comprehensive action…