Welcome to the New South Wales EPA

In the state of New South Wales rail operators are required to hold an Environment Protection Licence issued by the NSW Environment Protection Authority. The licence for interstate rail freight is held by the Australian Rail Track Corporation, in their role as track access provider.

But the licence includes restrictions on the classes of locomotive allowed to operate on the ARTC network in New South Wales.

L2 Noise limits

Note: It is an objective of this Licence to progressively reduce noise impacts from railways systems activities to the noise level goals of 65 dB(A)Leq, (day and evening time from 7am – 10pm), 60 dB(A)Leq, (night time from 10pm – 7am) and 85dB(A) (24 hr) max pass-by noise, at one metre from the facade of affected residential properties.

The licensee must obtain approval from the EPA prior to permitting operation on the “premises” of:

1. a class or type/model of locomotive, whether new or existing, that is not included in Condition E2; or
2. a locomotive that has been substantially modified since it was last used on the licenses premises.

A new class of locomotive type/model previously approved under Condition L2 may be brought onto the rail network without further approval provided that it is consistent with that type/model and EPA is notified at least 7 days in advance. Condition E2 will then be updated at the next opportunity.

Note: EPA approval for a new locomotive will be granted on the basis of compliance with the locomotive noise limits in Condition L2.5, L2.6 and L2.7 and will require submission of noise test results from a representative number of locomotives from that class or type/model.

A schedule of approved locomotives also appears, their inclusion via different approval paths:

• Locomotives which operated into New South Wales before the 1980s are permitted as they were “introduced prior to approval process”,
• Locomotives introduced during the 1990s were “approved under previous legislation”,
• Newer locomotives from the 2000s have underwent a EPA class approval process,
• And the modern plague of Downer EDI Rail GT46C ACe and UGL Rail C44aci locomotives are type approved, so their different class designations don’t matter from an EPA perspective.

But for rail freight operators there is still a stumbling block – encountered by interstate locomotives that never operated into New South Wales before the EPA rail noise regulations were introduced.

Enter the Queensland Railways 2800 class

The Queensland Railways 2800 class are diesel locomotives introduced in 1995 to run freight trains on the narrow gauge network in Queensland.

Photo by Pytomelon87, via Wikimedia Commons

But from 2003 Queensland Rail expanded interstate as QR National, and decided to put one of the 2800 class onto standard gauge.

But there was a problem – the locomotive didn’t meet NSW noise standards, despite noisier locomotives already being permitted under the legacy approval path.

Aurizon (formerly QR National) initially applied to operate the 2800 class locomotives in NSW in 2006. This initial application was made for the locomotive using the original (as-supplied) transition muffler and coffin muffler. At this time, permission to operate in NSW was refused on the basis of noise emissions.

Subsequently, modifications were made to the transition muffler, improving its performance, and Aurizon again applied to the EPA for permission to operate this class in early 2012. The locomotive was again refused permission to operate by the NSW EPA on the basis of low-frequency noise emissions.

So modifications were made to the exhaust – and the test passed.

The EPA has subsequently approved this locomotive class (rebadged as the 3200 class) for use in NSW, stating that “Based on the information provided, the EPA considers that the noise performance of the 3200 class locomotive is consistent with current best practice in NSW.”

With the three modified locomotives now able to operate in NSW.

And the one-off diesel GML10

GML10 is a one-of-a-kind diesel locomotive, built in 1990 for the Goldsworthy Mining Company to operate iron ore trains in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

J Joyce photo via Rail Heritage WA

In 1994 it was sold to Comalco to operate on their bauxite railway at Weipa in Queensland, then sold again in 2009 to Australian Locolease who resold it to Qube Logistics, who operate it on standard gauge freight trains across Australia.

But there was a problem – GML10 had never operated in New South Wales to be approved under the legacy approval path, and as a one-off locomotive, going through the onerous noise approval testing process doesn’t make financial sense.

So Qube’s solution – drag the locomotive dead attached through New South Wales.

A waiver to the published conditions in the ARTC Train Operating Conditions Manual is granted for the movement of GML10 from Broken Hill to Albury via Parkes and Junee ARTC network in NSW. GML10 to be dead hauled at all times.

Or turn off the locomotive before it crosses the border into NSW, and park it in the yard at Albury!

A tactic that bit Qube on their behind in 2017, when a failed train had to be rescued, and GML10 was the only locomotive available to assist.

As a result, Qube sought special permission from ARTC to operate the locomotive over the 2500 metres from the NSW/Victoria border into Albury yard.

A waiver to the conditions of the ARTC TOC Manual is issued for the movement of Locomotive GML10 from the Vic/NSW border into Albury yard under its own power.

Locomotive GML10 is required to be attached to a disabled grain train in Albury. There is no other practical method of movement.

Conditions of movement:

1. The engine of GML10 shall be run for the minimum practical time to SAFELY complete the relocation movement.
2. The movement shall be completed using power setting no greater than notch 2.
3. Movement shall be carried out in daylight hours, 0800 – 1800, to minimize impact on receptors.
4. Once attached to the train GML10 shall be shut down and hauled past the border prior to restarting.
5. Conditions of TOC Waiver 15113 shall re-apply after this movement is complete.

A comical situation, especially given unmodified diesel locomotives from the 1950s are allowed through New South Wales making as much noise as they please.

Footnote: the Border Railway Act

Another complexity on rail noise regulations is the broad gauge railway that crosses the Murray River at Echuca and continues north to Deniliquin in New South Wales.

The railway is operated as an extension of the Victorian rail network.

And is governed by the 1922 Border Railways Acts, with New South Wales passing control of the railway to Victoria.

Control and management of certain railways by Government of Victoria

The Government of Victoria shall, subject to the agreement, have the right to control and manage any railway in New South Wales referred to in the agreement, and the Victorian Authority may, in respect of such control and management, exercise all the powers which are by law conferred on the Victorian Authority in respect of railways in the State of Victoria.

Including what I see is authority to power to set their own rail noise regulations.

Schedule 1 The Agreement

The Government of New South Wales undertakes to vest in the Government of Victoria any authority necessary to sanction the working of any railway or railways under this Agreement in New South Wales territory, including collection and enforcement of fares and freights, and the vesting of the control and management of the lines in the State of Victoria.

So presumably a new-build broad gauge diesel locomotive could operate on the Deniliquin line without issue – assuming one was actually built!

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I’m not joking – head off to a workwear supplier, and they’ll list ‘Victoria’ and ‘NSW’ specification high visibility vests.

The NSW version has the reflective strips forming an ‘X’ across the back.

While the Victorian one doesn’t.

The Victorian version apparently conforms to Australian Standard AS4602.1 Figure 2(c).

Australian Standard AS4602.1 Figure 2(c)

As detailed in Metro Trains Melbourne’s Management of Personal Protective Equipment Procedure.

All high visibility garments must be fitted with retro reflective strips. The strips must;

• Meet either requirements of Class R material in Australian Standard AS/NZS1906.4;
• Positioned on the garment in accordance with AS4602.1 (Refer Figure 1 below);
• Are at least 50mm wide;
• Are silver in color.
• Applied and remain in place and serviceable for the life of the garment under normal use and laundering.

Positioning of the strips on garments must be in accordance with Australian Standard AS4602.1 Figure 2(c), as follows:

• a. Two horizontal hoops of retro reflective material must encircle the waist;
• b. Strips of retro reflective material must cover each shoulder.

While the Sydney Trains Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) standards details their style.

Positioning of the strips on garments must be in accordance with AS4602.1, as follows:

• i) One horizontal hoop of retro reflective material must encircle the waist;
• ii) A second horizontal strip must be at the back, below the waist, so as the strip is still visible when the wearer is bending forward or in a stooped position. The minimum gap between the horizontal strips should be 50mm;
• iii) Two vertical 50mm strips of retro reflective material must join the upper horizontal hoop, straight over each shoulder, and forming an “X” on the back

A real dogs breakfast, isn’t it!

This being a canine working on a *Victorian* railway.

A footnote on Australian Standards

Unfortunately I can’t actually check Australian Standard AS4602.1 “High visibility safety garments” for myself, because the publisher SAI Global is a money hungry grub who refuses to make them available to the public, despite their status as an essential service in governing consumer safety.

Meanwhile in Europe…

It seems that the European Union also has it’s own high visibility vest standardisation issues – some countries use yellow, others orange.

Yellow or orange? Our eurostar hi-vis vests are reversible to take account of the requirements of the different countries we work in.
Yellow:
Orange: pic.twitter.com/Hv2rSY2F5h

— Justin on eurostar (@EurostarJustinp) January 5, 2023

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This doesn’t look like a road, does it?

But in September 2019 whoever was driving the Google Street View car that day decided to head down there.

Driving from Lilydale towards Mooroolbark via the rail access track, and being overtaken by a train along the way.

But that wasn’t the only time Google drove down the access track – in May 2021 they approached it from the Mooroolbark end.

Driving through the trees.

This giant boghole wasn’t enough to stop them.

But thankfully the driver wasn’t stupid enough to drive onto the road-rail vehicle track access pad.

But soon enough the access track returned to rail level, just as a train approached from behind.

The train crept up quickly.

Soon level with the car.

The train slowing getting the edge.

But with six carriages, it took a while to overtake.

And then it was gone.

It was also the end for the Google Street View car – today happened to be the day that a track gang was at work beside the railway line, and their cars were blocking the way towards Lilydale.

So presumably the Google Street View car had to sneak back the way it came, an embarrassed driver at the wheel.

Footnote: off for a drive

You can follow the Google Street View car yourself – here is the route it took along the railway line.

Footnote: and another Google Street View sighting

Here we see a young railfan beside the Frankston line, waiting for the next train to pass beneath the Dane Road bridge in Moorabbin.

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Asking why

I went down this rabbit hole after Philip Mallis asked on Twitter why The Overland stopped at Dimboola for a crew changeover, partway through the 10 hour journey from Melbourne to Adelaide.

Waiting at Dimboola, for the crew changeover. Anyone know why they change? pic.twitter.com/qXilxOv6g0

— Philip Mallis (@philipmallis) March 11, 2022

10 hours without any rest breaks would be pretty full on, so how does it work?

But first: maximum shift lengths

The “Rail Safety National Law” spells out the maximum length shift that a train driver is required to work, but like everything railway related in Australia, each state does things slightly differently – so here is the NSW version:

Working hours for rail safety workers driving freight trains

The following work scheduling practices and procedures apply to a rail safety worker who drives a freight train–

(a) in the case of a 2 person operation where the second driver is a qualified train driver (including a qualified train driver who is learning a route or undergoing an assessment)–the maximum shift length to be worked is 12 hours;
(b) in the case of any other 2 person operation–the maximum shift length to be worked is 11 hours;
(c) in the case of a 1 person operation–

(i) the maximum shift length to be worked is 9 hours; and
(ii) a minimum break of not less than 30 minutes must be scheduled and taken some time between the third and fifth hour of each shift;

Working hours for rail safety worker driving passenger train–single person operation

The following work scheduling practices and procedures apply to a rail safety worker who drives a passenger train in a single person operation–

(a) in the case of an interurban or a long distance train–the maximum shift length to be worked is 10 hours;
(b) in the case of a suburban train–the maximum shift length to be worked is 9 hours;

Working hours for rail safety worker driving passenger train–2 person operation

The following work scheduling practices and procedures apply to a rail safety worker who drives a passenger train in a 2 person operation–

(a) in the case of a 2 person operation where the second driver is a qualified train driver (including a qualified train driver who is learning a route or undergoing an assessment)–the maximum shift length to be worked is 12 hours;
(b) in the case of any other 2 person operation–the maximum shift length to be worked is 11 hours;

So a maximum shift length of 12 hours when two qualified drivers are sharing the job, reducing to 9 hours for suburban passenger trains operated by a single driver.

So back to the crew changes

In the case of The Overland, Journey Beyond Rail contracts freight operator Pacific National to supply locomotives and train drivers.

Pacific National has a crew depot is at Dimboola, with Melbourne-based crews taking westbound trains to what is approximately the halfway point between Melbourne and Adelaide, swapping over with a fresh crew, take their meal break at the station, then meet the inbound crew of the next eastbound service, which they take back to Melbourne, where they finish their shift.

However customer service staff on The Overland have no such luxury – with only two trains each way per week, they need to work a whole day eastbound from Adelaide, stay overnight in Melbourne, then work all day back to Adelaide westbound.

The NSW TrainLink XPT service between Melbourne and Sydney operates on similar principles: train crew come from Junee, while the customer service staff are based out of Albury and work an “out and back” shift through Victoria.

Pacific National freight trains do something similar on the busy Melbourne-Sydney freight corridor.

Melbourne-based crews work their trains as far north as Junee in New South Wales then work another train back south.

Crew changes for other services can be little ad-hoc: in the case of the Great Southern train that travelled down the east coast of Australia, it pulled up at Brooklyn in Melbourne’s west at midnight to swap over train crew.

And on this Melbourne to Deniliquin freight train, the crew changed over at Echuca.

And when trains are delayed, crew who are approaching their maximum shift time sometimes just have to put their train away at a crossing loop, and await a relief crew to arrive by road.

Another way of splitting shifts for freight services on quieter routes is the “rest job” – where train crew take a train out of the city to the country. They stable the train at the freight terminal for loading, then head off to a local motel to sleep, then return later that day to take the train back to the city.

And the tough transcontinental jobs

As for trains running between Adelaide, Perth and Darwin – better strap yourself in – you’re living onboard the train for the next week!

Customer service staff on The Ghan and Indian Pacific work a week on / week off FIFO-style roster out of Adelaide.

Living onboard the train as it takes them all the way to Perth, Darwin or Sydney – and back.

Working one week on, one week off, commencing your week on either Sunday or Tuesday, you’ll be engaged part-time. The days can be long but will feel like they’re going fast. The job is physical but dynamic.

Train drivers on these routes also live onboard their train for days at a time, sleeping and eating meals in a self-contained carriage coupled up behind the locomotives.

The practice is known as relay working, and dates back to the early days of the Central Australia Railway and North Australia Railway systems.

Image via Wikipedia

As they made their way to the north of Australia.

Relay vans were used on all narrow gauge trains operating on the CAR and NAR systems thus allowing for four engine crew and two guards to work between Stirling North and Alice Springs, Darwin to Larrimah and Frances Creek in relay without the need for rest houses being constructed.

However recent research has shown relay working isn’t conductive to quality sleep.

Relay working operations typically require two crews of train drivers to work a rotating 8-h schedule for two or more days. While one crew is driving, the other has the opportunity to sleep onboard the train.

The current study investigated the impact of relay work on drivers sleep quantity and quality. Fourteen drivers wore wrist activity monitors and completed sleep/wake diaries for 3 d prior to and during short (<48 h) relay trips.

Drivers obtained an average of 7.8 h sleep per night while at home, and an average of 4 h sleep per opportunity during the relay trip.

Sleep obtained in the relay van was associated with longer sleep onset latencies, lower efficiency and poorer subjective quality than sleep at home. During the relay trip, drivers obtained significantly more sleep during opportunities that occurred in the evening, than those that occurred early morning or during the day.

These findings suggest that while drivers are able to obtain sleep during short relay operations, it is of poorer quality than sleep obtained at home.

Further, the timing of the sleep opportunities during the relay trip impacts on the quantity and quality of sleep obtained.

But research shows that the poor sleep was still “good enough”.

Overall, drivers reported that they felt more alert following each sleep period.

Drivers were able to sustain attention during the 10-min vigilance tasks administered before and after each shift.

These findings suggest that the amount of sleep obtained in crew vans during short relay operations is sufficient to maintain alertness during the trip.

As you might guess, the push towards relay working came from train operators, not staff.

Relay operations are normally undertaken in remote and isolated areas, and generally involve trips that are greater than 30 h in duration.

In many Australian states, relay working has been introduced to facilitate the delivery of goods around-the-clock and year-round.

While relay operations are often considered cost-effective and practical, there is widespread concern that relay work has a detrimental impact on the drivers sleep and performance.

One rail operator justifying the practice to their employees in their enterprise agreement.

The following characteristics are used as a basis for but not the limit of any decisions to introduce relay working:
13.1.1 The remoteness of the operation; and
13.1.2 The distances travelled. Relay working is best suited to long distance trips; and
13.1.3 The viability of establishing crewing depots at appropriate locations and being able to staff those depots.

Relay working is not designed to eliminate existing depots or to force the relocation of existing employees.

With the reason for train drivers to adopt the practice – extra pay.

During a relay operation time spent working will be paid at the employee’s rate for the day inclusive of weekend work payment if applicable.

During the relay operation time spent resting or sleeping in the crew van will be paid 100% payment whilst resting.

Enough compensation from being away from family and friends for weeks – that’s your own choice to make.

Footnote: Metro Trains Melbourne

Metro Trains Melbourne does things a little differently – their rosters are grouped into day and afternoon shifts, with each one having a different start and finish time. The most visible shift changes are at Flinders Street Station, where trains sit in the platform for a few minutes.

But drivers also take over trains at stabling yards, when based at crew depots called “outstations”.

And despite a kerfuffle back in 2012 over the decentralisation of driver depots, changeovers also happen outbound at North Melbourne station.

And at Clifton Hill.

Train drivers at Metro Trains also work shorter shifts than train drivers interstate, only 8 hours 29 minutes long, due to Victorian regulations that pre-dated the Rail Safety National Law.

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How we got there

The story starts the same was as Australia’s rail gauge muddle, where each colony started building railways based on their own standards, never thinking the systems would meet to form a national network.

But despite early trials on the Commonwealth Railways during the 1950s, the rollout of two-way radio systems was resisted by many Australian rail operators. Franklin Hussey, Crew Operations Manager for the National Rail Corporation, had this to say to the 2001 Special Commission of Inquiry Into the Glenbrook Rail Accident.

The introduction of train radio systems combined with track circuiting has been slow to develop in Australia, contrary to what occurred in the United States of America after World War II.

In Australia they were not contemplated until an incident in Victoria at Barnawartha in the 1982 when a freight train collided with the rear of the Southern Aurora.

He stated that New South Wales was the least developed of all the States until the development of the Metronet and Countrynet systems the mid-1990s.

So one might think the lessons of the past on rail gauge would lead to standardisation – but it didn’t.

Communications facilities and current call types have evolved due to the different safeworking practices of the rail authorities and their investment strategies. Each system has evolved to best meet the requirements of their operation and necessarily are influenced by the equipment capabilities which in turn depend on the level of investment. The differences between systems is a major inhibition to flexible locomotive operation on the interstate corridors.

And so each state-based rail operator adopted their own standards for radio communications.

And the mess

By the 2000s there were 20 different radio systems in use across Australia – most states using different radio systems for their suburban and country rail networks.

Australasian Railway Association diagram

To make matters worse, there was no single radio capable of supporting all 20 systems.

Whilst most areas are shown as requiring UHF radio, it should be noted that no single UHF radio can do the job.

The UHF radio used in the Perth Greater Metropolitan area is a trunked radio with narrow band operation. In general, radio transceivers that can provide the trunked radio operation cannot also provide the wide band conventional operation required for the rest of the country.

A standard, off-the-shelf conventional mobile radio can be used for the remainder of the UHF train control areas outside NSW. But in Victoria this radio is useless unless connected to a Motorola ASW or MDC600 unit.

In NSW, a special duplex radio is required for Metronet and Countrynet. There is only one source of duplex radio to our knowledge, although one can contrive a full duplex radio from two simplex radios.

Access to the Metronet system is limited to a particular brand and model of mobile radio. Although it is technically possible to implement the Metronet radio functions with other radio transceivers, the necessary information and approvals are not available.

Similarly, RIC is at present the only source of Countrynet equipment.

So a train travelling from Brisbane to Perth via Melbourne required six different radio receivers in the cab.

Rod Williams photo

Changing radio channels along the way.

Yet unable to talk to the driver of a steam train up ahead.

The driver of the suburban train running on the track alongside.

Or the driver of a parallel V/Line train.

In search of solutions

The formation of the National Rail Corporation in 1992 to take over the operation of interstate freight services on the railways of Australia provided an impetus to dealing with the mess of incompatible radio systems.

Weston Langford photo

They wrote in 1998.

Radio frequencies change frequently across the national track network, requiring complex radio equipment, and constant attention from drivers to ensure correct radio channels are selected for each task and area. The very large number of frequencies in use also places large demands on rail operators and track owners for provision of radio equipment and on controllers for attention to detail in its use.

So they patched over the problem with a system called AWARE – “Australia Wide Augmented Radio Environment“.

ATSB photo

It presented a single radio screen to the train driver, and managed a cabinet full of radio equipment, switching between them based on which systems were used at the current location.

ATSB diagram

But radios are still a problem

The inability for train crew from different operators to talk to each other in an emergency was a contributing factor to a number of rail crashes between trains during the 1990s and 2000s.

ATSB photo

At Glenbrook in NSW.

At 2 December 1999 a State Rail Authority interurban train collided with the rear of the Indian Pacific tourist train. The accident occurred because of a fault in an area of automatic signalling. As the signalling system was not functioning normally, control of train movements through the area was therefore managed by the signaller and drivers.

There is no single integrated system which enables communications between the various trains, signallers and controllers involved in operations on the rail network. In the case of this particular accident there were five different communications systems which were involved, namely, three different two-way radio systems (known respectively as Metronet, Countrynet and WB), dedicated line telephones at the bases of signals, called signal telephones, and mobile telephones operating on either the GSM terrestrial based network or by satellite.

Corio in Victoria.

On 1 October 1999 a freight train came to a stand at Corio station after an emergency brake application on the train. On investigation it was found that the train had separated, the rear portion of the train had six wagons derailed. The damaged wagons were fouling the Broad Gauge Line and the standard gauge line with severe track damage to both.

The report recommended that all locomotive drivers and train controllers to be instructed that immediately a train comes to a stand on a running line, the driver must inform the train controller who, in turn, must inform the train controller in charge of any parallel lines, so that all trains on the parallel lines can be warned.

Hexham in NSW.

On 12 July 2002 an empty coal train derailed at Hexham, fouling two out of the three adjacent railway lines. A short time later a passenger train collided with the fouling wreckage. The line that the passenger train was travelling on was track circuited but the track remained unbroken, preventing the automatic signals returning to stop. The crew from the coal train tried to contact the local signal box with no success.

And Chiltern in Victoria.

On Sunday 16 March 2003 a Pacific National freight train derailed south of Chiltern railway station on the standard gauge railway line. At about 1512 a V/Line locomotive hauled passenger train travelling from Albury to Melbourne on the broad gauge railway line, collided with wreckage from the derailed freight train. The collision derailed the locomotive and two carriages of train 8318

There was an about two minute window from the time train 1SP2N came to a stand, up to the time the driver of train 8318 applied the emergency brake, to try and stop train 8318 before the derailed train. In that time the drivers from train 1SP2N had repeatedly tried to warn train 8318, but were unsuccessful. The drivers also followed procedure by notifying ARTC train control but the message was delayed by four minutes before being relayed to the broad gauge train control (Centrol), not in time to prevent the collision.

And a solution

In 2007 the Australian Rail Track Corporation, announced that they would be developing a single National Train Communications System to be used on the interstate rail network.

Seventy-seven new Next G regional base stations will be built as part of an $85 million communications deal signed today between the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) and Telstra.

The agreement will see Telstra’s leading Next G network used to replace nine separate communications systems across 10,000km of rail tracks.

Replacing a series of old technologies, such as two-way radios and CDMA devices, the new network will provide telecommunications coverage for the interstate rail network – from Brisbane to Perth (via Melbourne and Broken Hill) and in the Hunter Valley. The agreement improves coverage in tunnels and across the Nullarbor Plain, introduces new communications equipment for more than 700 locomotives, and is backed up with Satellite if necessary.

Chief Executive Officer of ARTC, Mr David Marchant, said once completed all trains and train controllers would be able to use the one system to communicate with each other across the entire national rail network from Brisbane to Perth, as well as the Hunter Valley Coal Network, eliminating the inefficient nine different communications systems for train operators.

“ARTC is breaking new ground in Australian rail communications,” Mr Marchant said. “A single national communication system will greatly improve operational efficiency and reduce costs associated with managing multiple platforms.

General Manager Strategy Development and Chief Information Officer for ARTC, Mr Leon Welsby, said the new communications network will provide train controllers with real time GPS location of all trains, wherever they are between Brisbane and Perth.

Australian government funding under the Auslink National Transport Plan has been made available to provide this common communications system for the national rail network.

The new system supported four different data connections.

• Satellite
• GSM-R
• UHF (analog, digital)
• 3G (UTMS, HSDPA)

All controlled by a single ICE (In-Cab Communications Equipment) unit developed by base2 communications.

The rollout

One the new system had been proven in trials, it was time to roll out a new radio to every single train that operated over the ARTC network.

An ICE unit in every cab.

And new radio antennas on every roof.

V/Line’s fleet of VLocity trains didn’t miss out.

Gaining an array of new antennas.

Melbourne’s restored ‘Tait’ set also received an ICE radio.

And even steam locomotives didn’t miss out!

Gaining radio antennas on the cab roof.

Positioning of the ICE unit presented difficulties for some steam locomotives.

The radio equipment box on A2 986 ended up beside the coal bunker!

But in the end it was done – and the last of the legacy radio systems switched off in December 2014.

The Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) officially switched off the last two of seven out-dated regional radio systems previously used on its network today, completing a seven year project.

“The ‘switch off’ of the old radio systems in NSW and Victoria means freight trains operating on ARTC’s national freight rail network now use a single, safer, digital radio system,” ARTC CEO John Fullerton said.

While the physical network including mobile communications towers and satellites has been in place since June 2010, the retrofitting and testing of ICE (In-cab Communications Equipment) units across the national locomotive fleet and multiple operators has now been completed.

Currently 900 trains with ICE units operate across the country, 704 units were supplied by ARTC as part of the NTCS project.

Around 1024 Telstra Mobile sites form part of the communications network along ARTC’s rail network. Telstra provided an additional 81 radio sites along the rail corridor comprising 70 macro base stations and 11 radio fitted tunnels.

The Next G system is for non electrified NSW, the Victorian tracks controlled by ARTC, SA, NT and WA tracks, excluding the PTA system.

Finally putting an end to a mess created during the 1980s.

Footnote: Victorian train radio systems

The original 1980s analogue radio systems in Victoria used Motorola Micor base stations and Motorola Syntrex radios, with the Motorola MDC-600 data system.

Suburban trains used the ‘Urban Train Radio System’ until it was replaced by the GSM-R based ‘Digital Train Radio System’ (DTRS) using Nokia-Siemens Networks equipment in August 2014.

Country trains used the ‘Non-Urban Train Radio System’ with which was finally replaced by the NTCS-based Regional Rail Communications Network (RRCN) from 2017.

Further reading

• Train Radio Systems of Australia – Australasian Railway Association (2005)
• Australia Wide Communications Systems for CargoSprinter – John Aitken (2002)
• Review of rail access regimes – Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities (2018)
• Optimising harmonisation in the Australian railway industry – Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (2006)
• Derailment of Pacific National Freight Train 1SP2N and the Subsequent Collision of V/Line Passenger Train 8318 – ATSB (2004)

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