Melvelle Equipment has partnered with Zoellner Australia to provide sales, servicing and technical support to the Zoellner range of track warning systems.
Zoellner offers acoustic warning devices for the heavy rail industry as well as for the entire light rail sector.
Its products, in particular the Mobile Radio Warning System (MRWS), have been used to protect employees in the rail corridors on several thousand worksites across Europe, and now in Sydney with Sydney Trains.
The system consists of different devices and components which can be modularly configured within the system to meet individual needs.
The passing train is detected at the required distance, the information is transmitted via radio and the warning signal is issued on the worksite. When the train has left the worksite area, the warning is cancelled by the operator and work can continue.
Melvelle Equipment owner and chief executive officer Andrew Melvelle said Zoellner’s heritage lay in the design and manufacture of horns for ships and other forms of transport.
“As the largest manufacture in the world of horns, it is easy to see how Zoellner has become the trusted supplier of such a reliable and important safety device as automatic track warning ystems to our rail industry,” he said.
The MRWS is easy to deploy and can be divided into four specific areas within the system to protect the workers: Warning Trigger, Systems Control, Warning and (automatic) Deactivation.
The Warning Trigger is the detection of a train approaching the work zone with the highest level of safety. The radio transmitter can be used flexibly, either as a stationary technical detection or in a mobile man portable manual trigger. These triggers transmit the warning signal to the system control zone.
The System Control again can be a stationary unmanned or harness warn device that monitors all registered devices in the protected safety zone. If the system control does not see that all devices within the network are working properly, it will transmit a warning to all other active devices, notifying the workers to stay in a safe place until the system is fully functional in all areas.
The Warning zone is the area where workers must be protected. This area is monitored with stationary, mobile or personally worn protective devices that give a warning when a pull trigger sends the safety signal to leave the work area. This warning is both audible and visual on each warning device. Personal warning systems can be coupled with small LED lights that can be mounted in safety visors or goggles. Stationary horns in the area to be protected should be deployed at noise hotspots. All horns measure the ambient noise and adjust their warning volume so that workers within the zone can hear the alarm. The volume of the devices is between 97 and 126dB(A).
The Deactivation of the warning can either be done automatically or manually by the controller. Both only take place when the train has left the warning area and only then may the personnel re-enter the construction site.
“Here in Australia, we have two registered frequencies for the Zoellner systems,” Melvelle said.
“These allow us to protect more than one track zone during a possession in the same area. The system frequency selection on the devices is set for the zone on all the devices in the protected zone and does not interfere with the other protected areas.
“Additionally in Europe, Zoellner has worked with the signal manufacturers to automatically connect connect the track warning system into the signal systems to ensure that as zones in the network change from red to green, systems trigger warnings. This could be particularly important if Australia constructs a high-speed network.”
Zoellner’s MRWS systems can be configured to suit all work zones, with permanently installed warning systems for high maintenance area or fully mobile systems that can be easily deployed by two workers in either hard wired or radio-controlled systems.
Over the coming months, the Melvelle team will be preparing for technical training with Zoellner engineering to allow full servicing of the Zoellner systems locally in Australia at the Melvelle premises in Newcastle. Zoellner Australia director Christian Jung will be with the team to provide sales and technical training.
“This is an important step for the Zoellner journey here in Australia,” Melvelle said.
“Australians look for value and quick turn around with the products we purchase and it is imperative that an international supplier has a local presence to be successful in our industry. We will shortly have a full system inhouse to allow our sales team to perform demonstrations for interested customers.”
For more information, visit https://www.melvelle.com.au/
