INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

                Phew...... As expected, it took me almost five trips to DRM office to get joining letter. Nevertheless,The major objective to this post "INTRODUCTION" is to give you some initial  details of this training.

                Basics first " What is it about?". Well it's about my training in Signal and telecom at DRM office, State Entry Road, New Delhi i.e. Railway zonal headquarters. Well, Indian Rail network is one of the largest rail networks in the world. Naturally, to manage such a vast network requires some complex communication techniques. So, I will discuss about those techniques. Second "What I learned?"  According to them, it would have taken 3 months alone  to teach me everything about just one section of railways. and unfortunately mine is only 6 weeks. Either way I don't have so much time. So they gave me an overview of different section of railways.To be honest after having a first hand experience of internal working of railways, I felt the same way. "What will I post?" Everything I learned to the best of my ability. In short everything and anything I can document. 

                  On the ending note, I hope you will find this blog interesting and informative. Also, those who are interested are free to take advantage of this blog. Please comment if you have any queries or suggestions.

Gud luck!!!!!

TABLE OF CONTENT

WEEK 1 : CONTROL SYSTEMS (TRAIN TRAFFIC CONTROL)

WEEK 2 : RAIL-NET

WEEK 3 : UNRESERVED TICKETING SYSTEM (UTS)

WEEK 4 : LAB

WEEK 5 : PUBLIC ADDRESSING SYSTEM

WEEK 6 : EXCHANGE

NEXT | HOME | PREVIOUS

WEEK ONE : TRAIN TRAFFIC CONTROL

WEEK 1:TRAIN TRAFFIC CONTROL

1.0.1 INTRODUCTION

         Train traffic control plays an important role in day to day functions of our trains. Being one of the largest network in world railway cannot be handled by any private party. After all managing such a network efficiently is not a child's play but still it is being managed. So we will look into its basics like organisation and some insight of equipments and other stuff used. "Even a one minute delay in train schedule has to be reported with reason" These were the lines by the teaching staff there. 

        In other words what we see outside is just something but inside goes a complex process that ranges from finding solutions to operational difficulties,faults to ensuring repairs, maintaining schedule despite delays and stuffs like that. Even controlling traction(overhead wires) requires a complex network ranging from controlling it remotely to repairing it on the field (within specified time). Now let's proceed to next level.

1.0.2 TABLE OF CONTENTS

     1)  DAY 1 : TYPES OF CONTROL

     2) DAY 2 : DEMONSTRATION 

     3) DAY 2 : CONTD.......

     4) DAY 2 : CONTD2.......

     5) DAY 3 : COMMUNICATION BETWEEN CONTROLLER AND STATION MASTER

     6) DAY 4 : TRAIN TRAFFIC CONTROL EQUIPMENT

     7) DAY 5 : EQUIPMENT DESCRIPTION

     8) DAY 6 : NORTHERN RAILWAYS DIVISION (DELHI)

 NEXT | HOME | PREVIOUS

WEEK TWO : RAIL-NET

WEEK 2:RAIL-NET

2.0.1 INTRODUCTION

         Well after the ending of week one at Train Traffic Control starts week 2 at rail net. To be truthful it was a very unproductive week. Rail net refers to the public network  through which railway connect to to public in general. Example are Passenger Reservation System (PRS), Indian Railway Freight Trains Reporting (FOIS) etc. 

Basically, they just called on two days (first and last)  in whole week and gave the notes to ourselves to study so I will organise the notes as per day basis.

         A person reserving his tickets online does not know and hence can't appreciate the difficulties and challenges in maintaining such huge network of railways nor he knows the complexities involved in such networks. While we will not go very deep into the topic, we will definitely  try to touch the skin of the animal so as to give an idea about it. After all it is very complex and complex things require time and effort to understand not for you but for me.

2.0.2 TABLE OF CONTENTS

     1)  DAY 1 : NETWORK COMPONANTS AND BASICS

     2) DAY 2 : CONTINUING

     3) DAY 3 : FOIS SYSTEM

     4) DAY 4 : PASSENGER RESERVATION SYSTEM (PRS)

     5) DAY 5 : RAIL-NET

     6) DAY 6 : NETWORKING TECHNIQUES IN RAILNET

     7) EXTRAS

NEXT | HOME | PREVIOUS

WEEK THREE : UTS

WEEK 3 : UNRESERVED TICKETING SYSTEM (UTS)

3.0.1 INTRODUCTION

         Oh my god!! "My tickets are not booked! How do we get to my home". "No problem! we will go by general" replied his friend "Its not that our home is very far." Then he goes to the station and buys a unreserved ticket. "Unreserved tickets" are valid for one day for any train provided the class or the type of train ticket is same. After all you can't travel a super-fast train with a passenger ticket. But that also requires a centralised mechanism to store ticket number and data regarding it. There UTS comes into picture. It requires high speed network so it works on optical fibre cable.

         So, Let's start. Since the trainer was very busy he could teach us only for a couple of days. So The material won't be too much. Here we will primarily talk about the network regarding the UTS system.

3.0.2 TABLE OF CONTENT

    1) WEEK 3 : DAY 1 :- UTS NETWORK

    

   2) WEEK 3 : DAY 2 :- UTS NETWORK(CONTD)

NEXT | HOME | PREVIOUS

WEEK FOUR : LAB

WEEK 4 : LAB

4.0.1 INTRODUCTION

       Well the week started with a big boom of students. The students suddenly increased from just me in Control to 3 in Railnet to around 7 in UTS to a whooping 24 in lab where the seating capacity was barely 6-7. It took some time adjusting students and then the classes continued as usual. Nevertheless the opening ceremony of that week was given by SSE/TELE/LAB himself as follows.

     The first question he asked us "Why to take training in railways ?" A valid question if you ask me. According to him many of the equipment used in railways are unique to railways only i.e they have no resale value as they cant't be used elsewhere. Example is the control office described during Control week. So, you won't find them anywhere outside of railways. These equipment are only designed for railways and can't be found in open market. Their standards are set by RDSO (Research design and standard organisation). It designs as well as sets standard for equipment used in railways. That's ends his introduction to us. OK let's get started.....

4.0.2 TABLE OF CONTENT

    1) WEEK 4 : DAY 1 :- BASIC KNOWLEDGE

    

   2) WEEK 3 : DAY 2 :- GENERAL INFORMATION

   3) WEEK 3 : DAY 3 :- GATE PHONE

   4) WEEK 3 : DAY 4 :- COLOUR CODING OF WIRES

   5) WEEK 3 : DAY 5 :- COMMUNICATION EQUIPMENT

NEXT | HOME | PREVIOUS

WEEK FIVE : PAE

WEEK 5 : Public Addressing Equipment (PAE)

5.0.1 INTRODUCTION

       WHAT IS PUBLIC ADDRESSING SYSTEM?" "Public Addressing Equipment" are the equipments which are used in "Public Addressing System i.e to convey messages to public. Examples are Speakers used in platforms that announce the passengers about schedule of different trains, Arrival and departure of trains etc. It can also be used to give messages to mass staff members. There is always a need of communication between consumers and service providers for the smooth functioning of any organisation and PAE is a part of that communication

        Basically they just showed us the instruments used in PAE and their working. Only I will try to explain their circuit diagram, basic building block and working in each block. I will also try to explain more about other equipments used in railways for addressing public

5.0.2 TABLE OF CONTENT

 1) WEEK 5 : DAY 1 :- PUBLIC ADDRESSING EQUIPMENT

NEXT | HOME | PREVIOUS 

WEEK 6 : EXCHANGE

WEEK 6 : EXCHANGE

    Exchange is basically switched telephone connection between different office and phones usually used in large offices to facilitate communication between various employees in this case.

6.0.1 WHY EXCHANGE?

    Let us take an example to illustrate this. Let us take a office with 100 offices for 100 employees. Let us assume you are in this office as "boss". Suppose you want to relay some information to one of your subordinates. Now you have a couple of options here.

1) Go to the office of your subordinate and convey him the information.

2) Order your Personal Assistant to call him and then convey the information

3) Convey the information to your Personal Assistant and then he conveys it to the employee.

    The First and second method are time consuming. Also if some query is there it will take even more time. The third method can involve incorrect convey of information plus the query problem is still not solved.

    To facilitate this we use telephone exchange. Here a phone is connected to each of the offices by a central exchange (analogous to switch) and a code is assigned to each of them. Now you have to simply enter this code in your telephone and your work is done

    Telephone exchange has one another advantage. For example you have your office in Delhi and you have to call to another branch of the office at Surat. Let us assume similar case is with 25 of employees and you only have one landline connection. So all 25 of your employees will come at your office to make the call. "DISTURBING isn't it" You are already busy and now this. It can be solved by telephone exchange. Just give a code to the landline number and the employees will enter the code and converse with the other office. After all it is highly unlikely that two people at once will call together.

6.0.2 Exchange: What to expect??

    The whole material in the training can be divide into two parts

1) Telephone Exchange :- It is used in a single office. It is basically a a network of telephones connected to centrally controlled switch (EXCHANGE)

2) OFC network :- used to interconnect offices in large area or intra office connection. It requires high speed which is fulfilled by OFC network.

Even though we alternated between above two parts I will take one topic at one time

 1) WEEK 6 : DAY 1 :- INTRODUCTION TO TELEPHONE EXCHANGE

NEXT | HOME | PREVIOUS