Bohumín Station Will Acquire Modern Signalling Equipment Lost During Fire

18.04.2018

Správa železniční dopravní cesty (SŽDC) started construction of modern signalling and safety equipment at Bohumín Station. Works will last up to next year and will allow finishing emergency traffic management which has been introduced two years ago at this railway station due to a devastating fire.

Fire hit the border-crossing Bohumín Station on 10 February 2016 in the evening. According to investigation results, it was caused by an electrical insulation puncture on the site where catenary cables crossed signalling cables which subsequently resulted in high voltage occurring in the signalling circuits of the Bohumín junction. Fire caused damage not only to the technological room of the signalling centre but also to signalling and safety equipment cables on the site of their conversion to a cable bridge near the road overpass to Skřečoň.

Signalling and safety equipment was out of order both at the station and in all connected line sections. Power feeding of switch points and signal heads did not work, nine railway crossing did not function either. In the following days, operation at the station was minimal; trains were directed to other routes or were replaced by buses. An improvement occurred only ten days later when a single traffic control system was introduced consisting in locking switch points. In April, the temporary signalling installation ESA 11 was activated. Its technology was placed in containers as well as the train dispatchers’ working site. These conditions persist up to now.

Station traffic will be controlled from Přerov

Preparations for installing permanent signalling equipment started practically at the same time. In 2016, the construction project intent and preparation documents were being elaborated and subsequently approved. Last year, a tender was called and a contract for project and construction works was signed in September with the company Společnost Bohumín, consisting of the companies AŽD Praha and EŽ Praha. Project works will now continue with the implementation as such which will last till next February. Total investment costs reach up to CZK 443 million.

”Compared to the state of things before the fire, the main change will be control of the activated signalling installation ESA 44 from the Traffic Control Centre in Přerov. That is why the construction will be connected to the implementation of long-distance traffic control in the section Ostrava-Svinov – Petrovice u Karviné“, says Mr. Miroslav Bocák, Director of SŽDC Civil Engineering Administration East.

After the activation of the permanent signalling installation, train dispatchers will no longer return to the signalling centre building where they were working since 2005 when modernisation of the whole unction was completed. They will transfer to a new traffic hall in Přerov; only the emergency dispatcher’s workplace will remain in Bohumín.

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