NEW DELHI: In an ambitious project of the Indian Railways (IR), the second round of proof of concept trials of ‘End of Train Telemetry’ (EoTT) devices have started on the sections of the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited after their successful trial under the North Central Railway (NCR) recently.
This project is under operating jurisdictions of the East Coast (ECo) and the South Eastern (SE) railways.
The experts are conducting the proof concept trials of EoTT with 3 sets of devices under their own direct monitoring for obtaining minute to minute rate of the device’s accuracy in automated services. The railways will adopt this cutting edge technology in the operating of the freights trains as an alternative to running goods trains without guards on freight corridors after measuring the success of ongoing proof concept trials.
ADG PR of the Railways, Rajiv Jain said the EoTT system consists of two units. “The first unit is called Cab Display Unit (CDU), which is fitted on the locomotive and the second unit is called “Sense and Brake Unit” (SBU) fitted on the last vehicle (coach) of a goods train”, Jain said. He elaborated further that both units of EoTT are paired with a radio transmitter that facilitates uninterrupted all-weather communication during the operating and static status of the train to the loco driver. “The EoTT device has been designed in a way to indicate to the driver of the train in case of the train starts parting. It also applies brakes to the rear unit of train averting the collision of the rear portion with the front portion of the train on track”, Jain said. “With the adoption of the EoTT system, dependency on the attachment of the Brake Van (the last vehicle of a freight-carrying train meant for guards) with a goods train will get minimised as this device performs all safety-related functions automatically, which a Guard performs in a goods train.”
Another benefit for the Railways after adopting the EoTT device would be that one additional wagon can be attached to the train in place of the Brake Van, rendering more space for more loading. Quoting details of the ministry’s planning for the EoTT, Jain said the Railways have started a process to procure at least 740 sets of EoTT. The one set of EoTT devices cost around Rs 10, 00,000.
Detailing some salient technological features of EoTT devices, Jain further said each device has an inbuilt system of Global Positioning System (GPS) for indicating location, length and the speed of the train with the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication to transfer data to the server also. Recently, the first EoTT system was fixed on an electric loco of a freight train to conduct the proof concept of trial under the North Central Railway between Kanpur and Tundla section.