Method and apparatus for vehicle-based switch locking in a rail network
AssigneeWestinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation
InventorJeffrey D. Kernwein
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A switch locking system and method of an authorized locomotive for safely traversing a switch in a railway including sending a lock command from a computer onboard the authorized locomotive to a switch controller associated with the switch; determining if a lock confirmation from the switch controller is received by the computer onboard the authorized locomotive; and safely traversing the switch upon receipt of the lock confirmation. The switch locking system and method may include sending an unlock command from a computer onboard the authorized locomotive to a switch controller after the train clears the switch.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- sending a lock command from a computer onboard a locomotive to a switch controller associated a the switch in a railway;
- determining whether a lock confirmation from the switch controller is received by the computer onboard the locomotive;
- and
- traversing the switch in response to receiving the lock confirmation from the switch controller.
A method comprising:
- determining approach of a self-dispatching locomotive toward at least one switch located on a railway;
- issuing a lock command by the self-dispatching locomotive, the lock command issued to a switch controller associated with the at least one switch to lock the at least one switch;
- and
- determining whether a signal is received by the self-dispatching locomotive from the switch controller;
- and
- moving through the at least one switch responsive to the lock command being issued to the switch controller.
A system comprising:
- an on-board computer system configured to be onboard a locomotive, the computer system configured to determine approach of the locomotive toward a switch in a railway and to
- send a lock command to a switch controller associated with the switch, the computer system configured to
- determine whether a lock confirmation is received from the switch controller and to allow the locomotive to
- traverse the switch upon receipt of the lock confirmation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.