Around the world rail service operators are under pressure to increase capacity, reduce costs and at the same time improve safety for all passengers of railway services.
The effects that extreme weather can have on rail services can be severe. In the past, earthworks problems would go un-noticed until the worst would happen, a derailment leading to injuries and even fatalities. Embankment slips or other earthworks problems could only be seen by the driver, and once it was too late.
Findlay Irvine have developed the "Earthworks Monitoring System" utilising our mesh solutions; the DC-TR76 mesh transceiver in the wireless tilt sensors and the DCTR-72 mesh transceiver in the data logger.
The Earthworks Monitoring System can detect anomalies alongside the railway line such as embankment slips to ensure that train lines can be closed and services redirected before a derailment has the chance to occur.
The solution provides an automatic alarm backed up by images if a serious earth movement has occurred.
Battery powered tilt sensors arranged along the length of the site communicate back to a central solar-powered data-logger which relays the information via GPRS to a management system. Images of the site are captured by the cameras to allow visual confirmation of the actual site conditions. The Findlay Irvine RailAlert Asset Management system is used to manage the data from site and can be configured to trigger alarms based on sensor location, alerting configurable stakeholder groups by SMS or email.
From top left : Embankment Slip Site, Train Derailment, Railway Line.
From bottom left: Findlay Irvine Logo, Monitoring System.