Keeping Trains Running: How Cableguardian Protects Railways From Extreme Weather

Water damage from flooding, extreme temperatures, high winds and electrical storms are a real danger to signalling power systems.

Network Rail warns that increasing instances of extreme weather may exceed ‘critical coping thresholds.’ As part of CP7, Network Rail has stated it will invest £2.8 billion in core renewals, maintenance and technology to deliver weather resilience benefits, including adaptation plans developed by and for regional networks. Due to budget constraints, however, Network Rail must prioritise where it invests.

What risks do weather events create, and how can signalling power systems become more weather-resilient? This article explores the answers to these questions.

To understand why such investments are crucial, it is important to explore the impact of extreme weather on rail infrastructure designed before climate change was the issue that it is today. Signalling power systems are impacted in different ways. For example, by:

Such events can prove costly. If there is prolonged service disruption, Schedule 8 payments fall to affected train operating companies (TOCs). During the 2022 heatwave, losses reached £30 million in one week alone.

Despite the urgency to locate and fix faults, the still-in-use traditional method of manual inspection is time-consuming and dependent on crew availability. It can also be hard for maintenance engineers to inspect and fix faults during extreme weather events, leading to higher costs and longer disruption times.

Viper Innovations’ CableGuardian’s continuous monitoring detects and alerts cable weaknesses and gives information about outages, particularly those that are made worse by extreme weather. Using Viper Innovations’ V-LIM technology – developed for the offshore oil and gas industry to monitor the critical infrastructure of production control systems – the system monitors insulation resistance, voltage and current, so action can be taken before severe weather impacts signalling power.

Faults and failures caused by extreme weather can be remedied proactively, reducing the risk of costly Schedule 8 payments. For example, CableGuardian supports:

CableGuardian’s capabilities align with CP7’s goals for maintenance and resilience in the face of climate change and more extreme weather events. The system is preventive, mitigating weather impacts and supporting rail reliability, safety and efficiency. By removing the need for manual inspections, reducing downtime and service disruption and ensuring targeted resource allocation, CableGuardian empowers rail asset managers to overcome the increasing challenges posed by extreme weather while prioritising resource efficiency.

Learn more about Viper Innovation’s CableGuadian

This article was originally published by Viper Innovations.