RailComm system aids railyard expansion

Fairport, N.Y.-based RailComm said Friday, March 7, 2014, a major North American railroad yard in North Baltimore, Ohio, has chosen to upgrade it current yard control system to include 18 new switch locations.

The locations include nine in the Process Area Extension, four in the R&D Track Project’s East and West End, two in the West End Ready Track, two in the Engine East Ready Track, and one in the East End Bad Order Track.

In addition, 16 derail locations are being added throughout the yard, RailComm said.

The switch and derails locations will use wheel counters as the train detection equipment in order to detect the presence of any rail vehicle in the vicinity of the device and to prevent the switch from being thrown beneath a vehicle. Switch position indicators (SPIs) will provide visual indication of the status of the switch.

RailComm’s SPIs are triple aspect and have a LED Automatic light intensity adjustment for day and night mode. The triple sided SPIs can be angled independently and therefore parallel to the track in both directions. RailComm is including SPI’s for all switch locations. A blue strobe will be provided for each derail to indicate when the derail is in place.

Existing workstations and servers are being used for control of the switches and derails via the RailComm Domain Operations Controller (DOC®) system. The DOC system allows for the control of and provides the status of field devices and operator actions by altering the display states of the icons on the screen.

RailComm’s 2.4 GHz RADiANT™ spread spectrum data radios will be used at each switch and derail location to provide reliable and secure communication.