SIGNAL+DRAHT | Issue 09/2009
Turnout safety during construction phases
In many cases, rail traffic has to be maintained when new construction work is going on, as well as when tracks are being renovated. The renovation and renewal of the railway infrastructure below the “rolling wheel” is a major organisational challenge, which is why major construction projects have to be handled by dividing them into several construction phases. For turnouts that have not yet been electrically incorporated into the safety system during a construction phase, but which still have to have regular trains running on them, Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) have provided a so-called “temporary locking mechanism for the construction phase”. In the course of implementing the concept of “plug-and-play pre-assembled turnouts” as a complete system from a single source, VAE Eisenbahnsysteme GmbH enhanced its range of switch machines with the option of an integrated locking mechanism for the construction phase.