In June 2013 Hitachi Rail Europe announced that its Onboard ETCS solution had successfully connected to the Network Rail Cambrian Line signalling system, and achieved ETCS Level 2 operation.
The Hitachi system was correctly identified on the Network Rail Signalling System and Control Centre in Wales (Machynlleth) without any system failures. The locomotive was driven under its own power with ETCS Level 2 via the GSM-R radio network in various operational modes such as ‘Staff Responsible’, ‘On Sight’, ‘Shunting’ and ‘Full Supervision’.
Richard Tomlin, Signalling Project Manager at Hitachi Rail Europe commented: “We have been working towards this key milestone for some time now and are delighted that we achieved this operation at a very early stage in the project. It gives us the opportunity to prove to the industry that our technology has full interoperability and can communicate with other suppliers’ systems. We are now able to move into the next phase of test running”.
Jim Doughty, Project Manager at Network Rail, added: “The success of the Hitachi trials demonstrates Network Rail’s continued commitment to supporting the purveyors of ETCS Onboard Systems and to providing a fully interoperable ETCS system within the UK.“
Exceptional performance
Once the onboard system is in full use, we will demonstrate a highly reliable and efficient cab-based signalling system which is compatible with the UK infrastructure, such benefits and improvements can then be applied to the overall UK and European signalling industry.