Aurizon fleet automation undertaking bearing fruit – Technique

A four-year program to introduce automation into its rail fleet is coming to fruition for rail freight corporate Aurizon.

In its first part 2024 effects [pdf], the corporate supplied updates on two automation initiatives, TrainGuard and TrainHealth.

TrainGuard has been within the works since a minimum of 2020, and in 2021 the corporate signed an settlement with Siemens to give you the machine.

It’s in response to the Ecu teach keep an eye on machine (ETCS), a signalling machine that relays data between the teach and a central control centre over a radio machine, reporting the placement, course, and velocity of each and every teach so the machine can calculate protected most operation speeds.

ETCS too can practice a teach’s brakes if important.

The Siemens machine has been deployed over Aurizon’s present TETRA radio community.

In its monetary effects, Aurizon stated TrainGuard is a “pathway to increasing our driver-only operations in Central Queensland”.

TrainGuard has been in operation since December 2022 at the Blackwater line between Callemondah, south of Yeppoon, and Bluff, east of Emerald.

Aurizon stated its 2d deployment within the Goonyella major line – from the Bowen Basin to the Dalrymple Bay coal terminal south of Mackay – is now nearing of entirety.

The primary operational carrier will get started on the finish of the 3rd quarter within the 2024 monetary yr, with driver-only operation to ramp up right through 2025.

The TrainHealth initiative, in the meantime, supplies efficiency and utilisation tracking in actual time.

The corporate stated it’s been carried out on its Siemens electrical and EMD diesel fleets, and is operational on its GE fleet in NSW.

“The majority industry unit in Western Australia could also be leveraging the advantages of TrainHealth with the AC 6000 magnificence an identical fleet set up finished,” the corporate’s record stated.