South African rail on News24

[John Ashworth]

Several stories on South African rail on News24 in the last day or so:

Accident railway to be fixed - 2011-01-15 14:40 - The railway on which two trains collided and injured some 90 passengers outside Springs was expected to be fixed on Saturday afternoon...

Port Elizabeth, Joburg trains cancelled - 2011-01-15 12:56 - Metrorail trains travelling between Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg have been cancelled after a bridge in the Eastern Cape collapsed following heavy rains...

Rain slows Gauteng Metrorail - 2011-01-14 15:32 - Metrorail Gauteng has experienced an unusually large number of train breakdowns, causing cancellations and delays, due to the incessant rain...

95 injured in Gauteng train accident - 2011-01-14 19:14 - More than 90 people were injured in a railway accident outside Springs on Friday...

[Andreas Umnus]

There happens a lot of accidents in the last time.
Let's hope that the bridge which is collapsed will be rebuilt as soon as possible. (ASAP - is that the correct short term?)
But if they wait so long with the repair like ob the Simonstown line, it might need some time until the trains run again.

[Steve Appleton]

Andreas, there is a difference. The Simonstown line belongs to PRASA (Metrorail). The break was on the last section -- a low-usage, commuter trains only, part of the line. The financial impact was very low and the inconvenience limited to commuters at Simonstown only. There was little financial incentive for the cash-strapped Metrorail to spend heavily to fix the line quickly.

The Port Elizabeth line belongs to Transnet Freight Rail and is a "core" line that carries heavy freight traffic including manganese for export. TFR has more money to fix things and must ensure that these trains get through as quickly as possible.

"ASAP" is a commonly used abbreviation for "as soon as possible" although it would not earn any marks for pupils at an English grammar school!

[Steve Appleton]

Andreus, the Metrorail accidents are a serious concern, not only to Metrorail themslves and their passengers but also to FOTR. The problem is that the signalling system is old and unreliable. One can blame the age of the installations, the old non-robust technology, rampant theft and vandalism, and allegedly poor maintenance.

Besides compromising safety because of the "human factor" where trains are manually authorised, these outages cause huge delays. For instance, ignoring the safety concerns due to possible driver or authorisation error, those signal outages can and have added up to 2 additional hours to the normal 2-hour long FOTR trip to or from Cullinan.

The good news is that Metrorail (PRASA) is to spend almost a billion rands on a signal replacement program in Gauteng, starting this year. A contract has been given to Siemens to supply the equipment which will establish a single control centre for the entire region. See: http://www.friendsoftherail.com/phpBB2/ ... =13&t=7177 and http://www.friendsoftherail.com/phpBB2/ ... =13&t=7717 .

[John Ashworth]

those signal outages can and have added up to 2 additional hours to the normal 2-hour long FOTR trip to or from Cullinan

2 hours and more - I was the fireman on a train that stood for 4 hours at a signal in December 2010!

[Andreas Umnus]

2 hours and more - I was the fireman on a train that stood for 4 hours at a signal in December 2010!

I think I saw the report in another section of this forum. You also wrote that you gave the passengers the money back. That's really sad.

those signal outages can and have added up to 2 additional hours to the normal 2-hour long FOTR trip to or from Cullinan.

That is really a long time. In this case (when signals out of order) trains in Germany get a written order to pass on. (After all safety precautions have considered).

Maybe I should ask about it in the section "Railway Technology" later.

[John Ashworth]

Andreas, we also get authorisation to pass a signal at danger, and it is rare to stand at a single signal for so long. The 2 hour delays are usually a result of having to stand and wait for authorisation at a succession of signals. Each one can be 10 or 20 minutes, especially if we have to wait for other trains to pass, which are also waiting for authorisation. It's a knock-on effect.

The 4 hour one was unusual in that CTC was unable to give us authorisation to pass the signal because they had also lost control (or at least indication) of the points ahead of the signal. This meant that the points had to be cranked by hand. In the past, crank handles were located in locked boxes near to points, but due to theft and sabotage that practice had been discontinued. Now the crank handles are kept at strategic locations and a Section Manager has to come out by car with the handle to crank the points. For various reasons on that day no Section Manager was available. We were eventually told that if we could send someone to Capital Park depot they would give us a handle, so eventually Arno drove the TFR pilot there and returned with the handle. By that time it was too late for us to proceed with the passengers, so in the end we returned home with an empty train and the passengers went by bus. For the next couple of trips we ensured that the pilot brought a crank handle with him each day.

[Steve Appleton]

Andreus, Technically, the authorisation to pass a "signal at danger" -- which may also be a dead, unlit signal (such a signal is regarded as though it is displaying its most restrictive aspect, usually "danger" unless it is a warning signal only) -- is a written one, completed on a form known as either an SD1 or an SD2 authority. Of course such forms cannot be easily delivered to the train, so the content is dictated to the crew -- originally by trackside telephone (a phone or phone socket was located near each group of signals), but now either by trunk radio or increasingly by cellphone. This is because like almost every aspect of trackside apparatus, theft and vandalism have taken their toll.

The SD1 authority applies when the signal and the section that it reads over are in the control of a single Train Control Office. The slightly more complex SD2 applies when the section is in the control of two TCOs where those TCOs have to confirm that they have first consulted with each other. The speed with which such authorities can be issued and the length over which the authority gives permission depend on the nature of the outage and what other traffic is in the vicinity. The outage may just be the signals or it may just be the track circuits. Worst case is that its the whole lot, including the points and their position indication on the panel.

If there is no conflicting traffic, we can be lucky and get an authority to pass a number of consecutive malfunctioning signals. At other times, we can be required to stop and get an authority at each and every signal (sometimes just a few hundred metres apart -- you can see the next signal) and often only after getting down off the train and physically checking (and calling-in to the TCO) all the points ahead too.

As John says, any other traffic heavily affects the issuing of authorities, especially if the TCO's panel is blank and the offices do not have any indication of where the trains are, except when they reach a designated signal when and where they phone in their report.

[Andreas Umnus]

Okay John and Steve, I see it is almost similar than we do in Germany when there are problems with signals.

Thank you for your explanations.