Electric Railways - 25 kV ac (continued)

The signalling centre at Mayne, worked by a computer driven train describer with an adjoining traction power control desk, is also the most geographically comprehensive and probably the most complex area signalling scheme in the country. However Melbourne and Sydney are not far behind. Complete area control of the inner Melbourne complex and underground loop (including all tunnel and station services and safety equipment) exists from the METROL centre at Batman Ave. The densest part of the Sydney area is controlled by two modern area boxes at Sydney and Strathfield for which extensions of signalling areas are planned. All these projects were locally engineered and substantially Australian made.

The latest electrification project in Queensland, which is still under construction in 1986, is the complete electrification of the major Bowen Basin coal routes at 25 kV ac. This very large ($Aust. 600,000,000) project, which covers the Blackwater/Gladstone, Goonyella/Hay Point, and Gregory (interlink) complex of lines involves a number of fundamental problems arising from the need to operate five locomotive 15 MW coal trains on isolated single track in areas where the electric power grid supply is both 'thin' and of relatively low capacity. The project involves the complete spectrum of railway disciplines -electrification, track, signalling, locomotives (146 are on order) control, and optimising of long train operations. Only some aspects of the locomotive and fibre optic signalling technologies are imported; all the rest is Australian. The Caboolture/Gladstone electrification will follow, resulting in full electric operation along the north coast from Brisbane to Rockhampton, 639 km plus several hundred km of expanding heavy haul coal railways inland.[10]

Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering