Supply Side: ENSCO, RazorSecure

Transportation Technology Center (ENSCO Photograph)

ENSCO, Inc., announces its inaugural TTC Conference and Tour. Also, RazorSecure launches a Digital Maintenance Gateway to help protect trains from cyber-risks and improve maintenance practices.

ENSCO and Wheel Rail Seminars will hold the first TTC Conference and Tour on Nov. 7-8 at the Transportation Technology Center (TTC) in Pueblo, Colo., and at the Pueblo Convention Center. The event will feature presentations on the latest advancements in rail safety, emerging alternative energy, and research funding opportunities, by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), railroads and suppliers. Additionally, attendees can take an expanded TTC testing and training facilities tour, which will include on-track displays from multiple rail organizations.

“We’re excited to bring industry professionals together to discuss important safety, security and research topics that are critical for the railway industry to inspire new advancements for years to come,” ENSCO President Jeff Stevens said.

For more information, visit ttc-conference.com or contact Acacia Reber, ENSCO Director of Business Development and Marketing, at [email protected].

For more on the TTC, read “TTC’s Second Half-Century: An Expanded Role,” by Dr. Maryam Allahyar Wyrick and Sean Woody, Director, Office of Research, Development and Technology, Federal Railroad Administration.

Rail cybersecurity firm RazorSecure has introduced the Digital Maintenance Gateway, which it describes as “an integrated solution, created to make it easy for rail maintainers to carry out maintenance tasks in a secure and efficient manner. The gateway empowers asset owners to automate repeated maintenance tasks and roll out over-the-air (OTA) updates across multiple trains at one time, reducing the need for engineers to manually access devices and therefore protecting onboard systems from risk.” (See image above.)

According to RazorSecure, the gateway’s features include:

• Secure remote access, allowing only authorized engineers to connect to specific assets in an agreed timeframe.
• Automation of repetitive or manually intensive maintenance processes performed on several train units simultaneously.
• Active monitoring of rail maintenance activities “to improve compliance, capture learning outcomes and quickly diagnose issues.”
• Issuance of individual and personalized passwords “to reduce sharing and ensure an accurate audit trail of who performed maintenance activity and when.”
• Anomaly detection and cybersecurity event recording “to ensure immediate flagging of potential attacks.”

“Rail maintenance is no longer just about trains and tracks, but increasingly focused on sustaining the complex combination of digital systems that keep networks moving,” RazorSecure CEO Alex Cowan said. “Railways are an integral part of a nation’s critical infrastructure and are therefore prime targets for cyber-attacks. We have spent years analyzing and researching the industry to understand where gaps in cyber-defenses exist. Our state-of-the-art Digital Maintenance Gateway has the capabilities to protect passengers, operators and help ensure the effective performance of rail networks around the world.”