More Safety for Railways – Pivotex Introduces Unmanned Automatic Control Station - SilverPoint+
08 July 2004 10:17
The need to monitor and control the loading and weights of wagons increases when the train operators have been separated from the units who own and maintain the railroads as a result from European Union policy to create true competition on the European railtransport market
Overweight and incorrectly loaded waggons are not only a safety risk, they also cause premature wearing of the rails, thus shortening the life and increasing the maintenance costs of railroads.
Silver Point+ is the most modern solution for the automatic monitoring of wagon weights and loads.
Automatic Unmanned Control Station
SilverPoint+ can be quickly and easily installed with no foundation work or rail disconnection required. The sensors are installed in the rails, with the measuring electronics and the computer with the analysis software either in a separate electrical cabinet next to the tracks or indoors in a control centre. In both cases, SilverPoint+ functions as a fully automatic, unmanned traffic controller, issuing alerts for overweight or incorrectly loaded carriages. Locomotive or wagon data does not need to be entered beforehand, as the system automatically recognises the passing trains and their locomotives, and 2-, 4-, 6-, or 8-axle waggons.
Information and Alerts Provided by the System
The system reports the axle, boggie, and total weights of each locomotive and waggon, along with the total weights and speeds of the passing trains. In addition, the system compares the front and back weights of carriages to each other in order to detect incorrectly loaded waggons. Side loads can also be measured, with detection of waggons that are loaded too much on one side (optional equipment).
The user may freely set alarm limits for axle, boggie, and total weights as well as providing either tonnage- or percentage-based threshold values for longitudinal and lateral loads.
Alerts to overweight or incorrectly loaded waggons are automatically displayed on the screen and printed via the printer, and they can also be automatically sent in e?mail form to the control room or as SMS messages to the mobile phone in the locomotive.
Control Station and Control Weighing System
The system is easy to configure as a ready-to-use automatic control station via its user interface, which runs on a normal PC.
In addition to functioning as a control station, the system can be used as a normal control weighing system, allowing the monitoring of waggon loads by customer and by product. Information on standard waggons (customer, product, maximum load, tare weight ) can be retrieved based on waggon number. Users can also print out reports they have defined by customer and by product.
Wagon identification
The system can be combined with several wagon identification systems, based on either Rf-id tags, code bars or video camera identification.
Options of the SilverPoint+ system:
- Side load detection - an important feature that improves safety, this can also be retrofitted
- Wagon identification for radioactivity control systems
- User interface of the control-and weighing system integrated into the customer´s own information system
- Wireless data transfer between weighing electronics and Pc
- Remote use, service and software upgrading
- Service and maintenance contract
For more information on this company:
Tamtron Systems - Weighing and Control Systems for the Railway Industry
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