Re: Australian Rail Highway

[mauried@commslab.gov.au (Maurie Daly)]

In article <5vig6i$5f7$2@perki.connect.com.au> steam4me@enternet.com.au (Yuri J Sos) writes:
>From: steam4me@enternet.com.au (Yuri J Sos)
>Subject: Re: Australian Rail Highway
>Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 04:12:10 GMT

>pcc@ocean.com.au (Leslie Brown) wrote:

>>All the states party to the agreement are to be shareholders in the
>>administering authority.

>>Les Brown.

>Does this mean that the administering authority will pay the PTC to
>get rid of ASW/SAW b/w Newport - Pyrenees?  

>Or worse, will ASW become the standard for thewhole system<g!>?

>I assume this authority's going to decide the "correct" CTC system,
>the replace &/or modify all other CTC systems to conform to this one
>standard.



Hopefully some sanity will prevail,and some sort of CTC will be invoked over 
the whole system , ie from Brisbane to Perth.
This wont be such a huge task at it appears,as fortunately there are forms of 
CTC already over a fair bit of the route, the only idiotic part is that 
currently each system has widely differant rules about how the system is 
interpreted.
A good example is Ararat to Wolseley & Wolseley to Keswick, both CTC systems, 
identical equipment installed by the same company,just the rules are differant.
A single set of rules woudnt be too hard to come up with to be fairly 
compatible with the current systems, a few definitions would have to be 
examined, eg most systems accept red over red for home signals as stop.
Clear normal speed is a problem with the current indications in NSW and 
Victoria being differant.
If for example the NSW definition was chosen ie a single green light as its 
existing CTC systems show, then it would be easy to simply arrange for the 
lower red light in the PTC & AN systems to be switched off when showing CNS,or 
you could go the other way and switch the red indicator lights on the NSW 
systems on.
All in all not a great deal of cost.
Newport to Pyreenees Loop could be converted to CTC on the cheap using axle 
counting technology, which saves the cost of track circuiting.
I dunno what to do about the TAR & CAR, not enuf trains to warrant CTC,might 
have to keep the train orders.
As ASW uses and needs proprietary Motorola Radios, I wouldt expect it to last.

cheers
MD


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Maurie Daly
Department of Communications Lab.
Canberra
Australia
mauried@commslab.gov.au
ph 6 2791331
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