The Southern Railway has installed a factory acceptance test (FAT), a facility to test the equipment for electronic interlocking signal system at Dindigul.
The new facility will help testing of the Medha-make electronic interlocking equipments.
“Till date, officials from our department had to travel all the way to its factory to test the equipment. It is a laborious and time-consuming exercise. Since, EI is progressively installed at railway stations across the zone, this facility will be helpful in reducing time and travel,” said Principal Chief Signal & Telecommunications Engineer, Southern Railway, R. Baskaran.
Mr. Baskaran said that Southern Railway has around converted the signals to EI around 60%. “The conversion to EI is being taken up in other areas too,” he added.
EI would create a synergic relationship between signals and points to improve safety and punctuality of trains.
“The testing used to take at least 10 days. Now, the travel time is reduced as it can be taken up in Dindigul,” he added.
The EI alteration FAT was commissioned at the office of Senior Section Engineer, Signal at Dindigul. It comprises one personal computer for operating the station yard and another computer for simulation tool and both.
FAT set-up at Dindigul is a pioneer work which will be used as a training module for railway engineers to perform circuit alteration and FAT testing thereby enriching their knowledge and capacity. It will be a model architecture for carrying out further alterations in Electronic Interlockig at various stations leading Southern Railway towards achieving Aatma Nirbhar Bharat, a statement said.
