Safety system for Kangy Angy depot

An advanced system has been installed at the Kangy Angy Transport for NSW depot to protect staff and equipment.

The depot , which maintains the new Intercity Fleet, runs 24/7 and has about 6km of electric rail lines and heavy equipment such as a 50 tonne wheel lathe.

Rockwell Automation and CNFiTech worked together to design and build the system.

CNFiTech was tasked with developing a flexible and functional design for a Depot Personnel Protection System (DPPS).

The system had to be SIL-2 rated, designed with readily available proprietary safety hardware and software tools, and easy to maintain.

SIL, or Safety Integrity Level, is a rating system that associates safety with the numerical probabilities of hazardous failures (0 being the lowest and 4 being the highest) for continuously operating systems or on-demand systems.

As a well-established specialist electrical and systems engineering company, CNFiTech drew on its experience gained over 25 years to design, manufacture and implement a suitable solution for Transport for NSW (TfNSW).

CNFiTech is an engineering services specialist in the fields of automation, electrical engineering and systems engineering, and it is a Rockwell Automation System Integrator partner with extensive experience with Rockwell Automation hardware and software.

“The system for TfNSW is designed to protect facility staff and equipment by delivering the safe and controlled movement of rolling stock into and out of the train maintenance depot,” Rockwell Automation NSW Territory Manager Aafiah Khan said.

To deliver this project, CNFiTech adopted the Authorised Engineering Organisation (AEO) framework that provided TfNSW with confidence in the capability of the company to deliver fit-for-purpose assets.

The DPPS has been designed to interface with the automated derailment monitoring system.

It also ensures the safe movement of trains into and out of the maintenance facility building and a lock-out personnel system prevent staff from accessing the area above the trains while the traction system is energised.

Underpinning this integrated safety system is Rockwell Automation’s GuardLogix® platform combined with associated safety devices, safety stack lights, and fortress keys and locks.

Equipment may be controlled and operated by manual or automatic mechanisms.

The safety system independently checks that the equipment is in a safe state and ensures it is disabled with an automatic or semi-automatic (monitored trapped key) interface.