Electronics

I saw this and is it old news or something to be concerned about?
Future of steam trains in doubt as railway signals face the axe
Network Rail said it aimed to ensure that steam and heritage diesel trains, which contribute £600m annually to the economy, can still ran. However, a source at the firm said the trials were exploratory and provided no guarantee of them being able to do so.
“But who will pay for that when there is a totally non-standard fleet of steam engines owned by a variety of different people is absolutely not certain.”
Under ETCS, rather than look out of the cab for signals, drivers will monitor a screen displaying a target speed and a distance until they have to slow down or speed up.

 

It is old news although as the article says the Tornado testing is very recent, although the delay may or may not be due to the many Tornado issues in the past couple of years.
What I am unclear about is if this would be covered under a Network change which would mean (like retention toilet tanks) NR would pay. However an old addition of Trackside I was reading the other day said NR were only talking about paying for 22 Heritage locos, which I believe was a mix of steam and diesel.

I also read on another forum the Scottish Transport Minister said they will not pay for ETCS in Scotland, although I would have thought that call is up to NR.

There have been many closures on the south end of the ECML for testing of this as well.

 

More positive take here:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...oved-steam-trains-trial-pioneering-technology

 

I wonder if the issue of cooling electronics in such an environment could be done using Peltier-effect heat pumps?

I still want to know exactly how ETCS interfaces with the stop/go bits of a steam locomotive.

 

If it puts the brakes on the ‘go’ bit will concede. It’s exactly the same as with TPWS and AWS., both of which shut off power with diesel & electric traction but not with steam.

 

I would image that over time, ETCS, will replace TPWS and AWS, so there will only be one system, that will cover what is needed, and systems will become more streamlined, to the point where the space needed reduces, as things become miniaturized, except for an VDU in front of the driver, much could be roof mounted, or hidden in lockers etc,

 

It was suggested to me at the time I drove 55 019 that the panel of six gauges in front of the driver could be replaced by a computer screen replicating them, but also carrying additional information.

 

In the case of Tornado, iirc there’s one of each, for forward and reverse running respectively.

 

A heat pipe with a fan is probably more suitable, as used for most (all?) computer processors. A Peltier is much less efficient but has the advantage of offering the option of taemperatures down to -30deg C, which probably isn't required here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pipe

 

This is old news, in that ETCS has become the future standard for mainline railway signalling in the UK. It is already on the Cambrian (in an early form) and the Thameslink core and will soon be on the southern end of the ECML and before too many years on the northern end of the WCML, plus I believe Trans-Pennine is going ETCS as well. HS2 will be ETCS from it's opening. ETCS uses in cab signalling so all info is presented to the driver by a display on the control desk which gives a lot more info than just a coloured light every so often; as an example speed restrictions can be put into the database and immediately appear with no need for lineside boards.

The immediate future, however, will be a series of ETCS 'islands' appearing as current kit is replaced. For steam wishing to continue, we all need to get behind efforts to get ETCS to work on our locos, so Tornado's news is promising. That or find routes around the islands!

 

I did read somewhere online of a steam loco that has been fitted with a deadman's pedal type device which applied the brakes and used a servo to close the regulator, presumably something similar could be done. As you say though the brakes would be powerful enough that it may not be worth the effort.

 

Surely, all it needs is a flashing light and a buzzer that the driver has to reduce speed, if going too fast, and aspect indicators to indicate road clear, or Caution, and red to say stop the Caution could flash as the activator for the red aspect reduces in distance to 100 meters, or what ever would be the safe stopping speed.

 

There is an existing design for ETCS equipment, we just need to work out how to fit that! It gives far more info than basic signalling including the gradient of the road ahead, upcoming speed changes, the current speed and the current max speed. It really is better than conventional signalling, so I didn't think we need to re-work it

We just need to get practice fitting it to engines not designed for it.

 

That would be little advance over lineside signals and TPWS. ETCS does a great deal more.

 

I'm more thinking a reduction of ambient temperature within the enclosure rather than anything else. Unless you go full Mil Spec, most components are pretty unhappy at -30 deg. C...

 

I may be remembering wrong, but I’m pretty sure I was at Romney when they were testing some sort of vigilance device - maybe they’ve cracked it for 15” gauge at least!


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