Excursion to the Railway Operation Laboratory of TU Dresden
On the 06/07/2018, a group of eleven students accompanied by two employees of the Chair Transport System Planning visited the Railway Operation Laboratory of Technical University Dresden. As part of a behind-the-scenes tour, Mr. Walerian Nesterenko, responsible for laboratory control and software development, gave the students an understanding of the basics of rail operations, process control technique as well as of the mode of operation of various signal box designs.
The excursion was organised for interested parties of the traffic group, a student interest group. Participant Maximilian Wunsch (Master in Environmental Engineering) explains the experience of the excursion as following: “The Railway Operation Laboratory was a very exciting destination for an excursion in many dimensions. From the attention to detail with which the model railway layout is built via the huge expanse of the railway system and highly complex control technique through to a small historical tour one experiences on the tour through the laboratory. Many day-to-day procedures at the railway became understandable to “non-railwaymen” as well and the opportunity to change the points by oneself once – literally – topped off the first trip of the traffic group interactively.”
The Railway Operation Laboratory is part of the Integrated Railway Laboratory at the Faculty of Transportation Science “Friedrich List” of TU Dresden. Rail operations are simulated over a model railway layout on a scale of H0. The control of the system takes place through six different signal boxes of different designs to visualise the development of the technique. Students of different study courses as well as railway company employees can learn the basics of rail operations here.
Warm thanks to Mr. Walerian Nesterenko for the vivid tour and demonstration in the Railway Operation Laboratory.
