Universal Axle Counter for Railyway Signalling
UNIVERSAL AXLE COUNTER SYTEM
1.0 INTRODUCTION :
1. The track circuits are considered as the vital component of signaling system to achieve safety of train operations. Various Accident Enquiry Committees have recommended to bring more and more tracks under track circuiting to safeguard against reception of trains on occupied lines. The track circuiting could not achieved desired progress die to virtual scarcity of wooden sleepers, prohibitive costs and environmental consciousness in the country and the world at large. Availability of concrete sleepers have solved the problem to some extent but track circuiting on loop lines, points and crossings still suffers for want of adequate supply and insertion of concrete sleepers. 2. Axle counters were developed as a substitute for track circuiting. Initially axle counters were imported from Germany to gain experience and to evaluate their suitability for adoption on Indian Railways. Having gained acceptability for introduction on a wide scale on Indian Railways, it was considered to take up indigenous development of axle counters which was taken up in collaboration with IIT, Delhi and DOE. Two models of axle counters known as single entry/exit axle counter were emerged and after extensive laboratory and field trials under various conditions, the design was finalized and commercialized through private sector as well as public sector.
Based on the feed back from filed, a new axle counter has been developed by RDSO, known as “UNIVERSAL AXLE COUNTER”.
1.1 ADVANTAGES The advantages of Axle counter over a conventional track circuit are that: i) It does not require wooden sleepers (where concrete sleepers are not available) except for short track circuits to suppress the counts due to movement of insulated trollies. ii) An axle counter system can cover a very long section up to 15 km as compared to 750 mts of maximum length of operation of conventional track circuit. iii) It does not get
1.0 INTRODUCTION :
1. The track circuits are considered as the vital component of signaling system to achieve safety of train operations. Various Accident Enquiry Committees have recommended to bring more and more tracks under track circuiting to safeguard against reception of trains on occupied lines. The track circuiting could not achieved desired progress die to virtual scarcity of wooden sleepers, prohibitive costs and environmental consciousness in the country and the world at large. Availability of concrete sleepers have solved the problem to some extent but track circuiting on loop lines, points and crossings still suffers for want of adequate supply and insertion of concrete sleepers. 2. Axle counters were developed as a substitute for track circuiting. Initially axle counters were imported from Germany to gain experience and to evaluate their suitability for adoption on Indian Railways. Having gained acceptability for introduction on a wide scale on Indian Railways, it was considered to take up indigenous development of axle counters which was taken up in collaboration with IIT, Delhi and DOE. Two models of axle counters known as single entry/exit axle counter were emerged and after extensive laboratory and field trials under various conditions, the design was finalized and commercialized through private sector as well as public sector.
Based on the feed back from filed, a new axle counter has been developed by RDSO, known as “UNIVERSAL AXLE COUNTER”.
1.1 ADVANTAGES The advantages of Axle counter over a conventional track circuit are that: i) It does not require wooden sleepers (where concrete sleepers are not available) except for short track circuits to suppress the counts due to movement of insulated trollies. ii) An axle counter system can cover a very long section up to 15 km as compared to 750 mts of maximum length of operation of conventional track circuit. iii) It does not get