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4/12/2024
Compiled by Michael Popke.
The Railroad Services Division of CDL Electric Co. manages crossing improvement projects "from site preparation to continued maintenance while complying with all industry and federal standards," company officials said in an email.
The company has extensive experience installing grade crossings across the United States and Canada, operating in over 35 states and provinces. Installation services include horizontal directional drilling and boring to prep a work site for a signal house. Construction teams then can install a signal house or upgrade an existing bungalow, along with all other signal components within a crossing improvement project, such as cantilevers, foundations and gate mechanisms.
Serrmi Products — originally part of the CDL Group of Companies — became an independent company in 2021. While CDL and Serrmi remain strategic partners, CDL provides such railroad services as signal maintenance and construction; Serrmi is a signal product manufacturer. Its flagship product is signal houses, company officials said.
Serrmi offers pre-designed signal houses with customization options, including 6-by-6- and 8-by-8-foot signal houses. The company's engineers also work with customers to design signal houses to specific size and technical requirements. Serrmi is expanding wiring capabilities to offer ready-to-install signal houses, company officials said.
The company's houses and cases feature stainless-steel three-point latching systems. Exterior door handles are designed to accommodate standard padlocks, and house doors are equipped with interior handles for convenient access when the enclosure is occupied. Door handle material can also be customized for environmental needs.
Wall, roof and floor panels can be made from 0.100" aluminum alloy 3003-H14, providing strength and resilience, and doors can be crafted from 0.125" aluminum alloy 3003-H14 to ensure long-lasting performance, company officials said. The structural material used in each house and case is aluminum alloy 6061-T6, which is known for its durability. External hardware is either galvanized steel or stainless steel to hold up in a wide range of weather conditions, while internal hardware is stainless or zinc-plated steel.
Railroads are increasingly operating in common corridors with power transmission and distribution lines, presenting new equipment protection challenges. Damaging AC faults caused by failure of power utility equipment on overhead power lines present high-energy, long-duration events that typical lightning-surge protective devices are not capable of withstanding, Dairyland Electrical Industries officials said.
Unlike lightning-surge events — which have an extremely short duration measured in microseconds — high-energy AC faults can last for up to two seconds, creating significantly higher total energy than traditional lightning surge arrestors are designed for, they said. These events pose a risk to track-connected signaling and crossing warning systems, as well as other protective equipment.
Dairyland's Overwatch HEFPD is designed to divert high-energy AC faults from railroad signaling circuits to ground. It operates as a normally open voltage-triggered solid-state switch, closing immediately upon sensing voltage above a predetermined threshold, and reopening once the over-voltage event has cleared.
Overwatch meets the specifications outlined in AREMA Communications & Signals Manual Part 11.3.7 and has been tested extensively for its capability to withstand repeated high-energy AC faults, company officials said. Overwatch also meets the applicable performance requirements of primary surge protectors as defined by AREMA.
Dairyland applies the concepts of electrical isolation, grounding and over-voltage protection to create standard and specialized electrical solutions to protect equipment and personnel. The company works with a variety of applications across multiple industries — including railroad, oil and gas, and power utility — to provide simultaneous isolation and safety grounding.
Onyx Rail Safety Solutions focuses on elevating safety at key monitored locations, including grade crossings, yards, stations and platforms. Capturing information via wayside sensors and processing the resultant data on the edge is vital, company officials said, adding that ONYX edge processors and associated electronic components can be mounted in the signal house alongside other controls and components.
XING™ is a 24/7 monitoring and reporting system that features a variety of sensors (cameras, radar, SCADA interface and others), depending on the scope of a project. The system uses the ONYX artificial intelligence and machine learning platform to identify such railroad hazards as blockages, obstructions, collisions, violations, trespassers, near misses, smoke, sparks and fire. The system also identifies warning system components (bells, lights, gates) that might not be operating within Federal Railroad Administration regulations. If a gate is broken or missing, the XING system sends an alert so it can be replaced.
Upon identifying a hazardous condition, the system automatically notifies all pre-programmed stakeholders. Alert notices occur in near real-time and provide the crossing number, location name, date, time of day and nature of the hazard. Alert notices are sent via text, email and/or automated phone calls.
Pintsch North America, which manufactures and deploys vital axle-counting signal systems, has rapidly expanded its range of services and capabilities during the past 18 months, company officials said. Pintsch now offers complete turnkey signal construction services: The company will design, custom manufacture and install signal systems for most railroad signal applications.
Pintsch also has expanded its line to include a variety of products designed to solve long-standing rail industry problems. Among them: the SPK-10 gate mechanism, which features a nearly maintenance-free design. Other products have been developed to solve shunting sensitivity problems encountered in traditional train detection systems, annunciator and remote-control systems for industrial applications, and advanced safety systems designed to expand the utility of the Pintsch MC6 switch protection system.
Pintsch also now has developed the capacity to solve difficult operational problems through innovative designs and custom manufacturing — whether the solution involves a single, custom-manufactured device, or something more traditional such as crossing or wayside signal technology, company officials said.
RailWorks Corp. provides, installs and services complex signal systems, and signal houses (also known as bungalows or cases) are the heart of signal operations, company officials said. The structures house such components as batteries, track current generators, relays, cable junctions, cab signal generators, fiber optic or radio networking devices, crossing controllers, wayside signal and switch control units, and local signal control panels.
The company specializes in the design, construction, pretesting, programming, in-service testing and maintenance of modern solid-state control systems, RailWorks officials said.
With the advancements in solid-state controllers, many relay-based logic control systems are being reduced or eliminated. Solid-state systems provide modularity, increased measures of safety and control, reduced maintenance cost, and greater overall stability of signal operations, company officials said.
With the addition of a new wire shop, the company now can supply customers with fully built and pretested wayside or crossing signal control houses. RailWorks also can provide turnkey solutions.
Siemens Mobility provides fully wired and rigorously tested signal houses, company officials said. The signal houses are available in various sizes, from compact cases to expansive 10-by-40-foot transit houses.
Before shipment, each signal house undergoes a comprehensive factory operational test to guarantee performance upon installation, company officials said.
Siemens Mobility's engineering department also provides hardware and software design for crossing, wayside and transit projects; the company's products "combine the real and digital worlds" to increase system availability and maximize network capacity, Siemens officials said.
The company's wiring facility is located in Louisville, Kentucky, facilitating swift delivery times to customers, they said.
Equipment in today's signal houses ranges from vintage to ultra-sophisticated, high-tech designs, but the houses remain susceptible to disruption or failure due to lightning storms and power surges, Site Specific Solutions officials said.
The company aims to prevent downtime by protecting the wide range of electrical/electronic devices — from any AC, DC or solar power, and line-to-ground applications — used by the signaling industry on mainline rail and transit properties.
Along with product designs, the company can help customers choose the best product for their application. If its standard products do not fit the bill, Site Specific will design another solution that can include custom-created kits for specific locations, company officials said.
Michael Popke is a Madison, Wisconsin-based freelance writer. Email comments or questions to prograil@tradepress.com.