Q&A: recovering stranded railway vehicles with HBC Radiomatic

Aerial view of the derailment. Image: UK Government

Mark Hollyhead: HBC Radiomatic is a German product, it has been manufactured in Germany for 75 years, from a family-owned company.

HBC Radiomatic UK are the UK agents for them, we are based in Birmingham. HBC Radiomatic UK was established in 2011. We manufacture, provide installation, repair, and carry out services on HBC Radiomatic products.

The brief for this project was that Network Rail’s maintenance systems use PLC control. If that fails, they can't move the trains. If the train is stopped there because of electrical failure, then it's going to hold up passenger trains.

The brief was to design a system in conjunction with Network Rail that could manually recover these systems. We designed a radio system, which was our 737 spectrum-3, and a small control panel for them. So, in the event of a failure, it's got to be a very lightweight piece of equipment because you're asking people to physically carry it.

The receiver part of the equipment fits onto the side of the train with magnets, and then there are these cables that they can physically plug into the train to move it. Because it's radio-controlled, they can step away from the train, away from the danger area, and just control it with our radio control. The alternative that they had in place before was to physically get underneath the train and do it manually, which is not a very safe option.

We've sold it to Network Rail and demonstrated it to their employees who then go and form a training package for the employees who are going to use it.

For the operator to be able to work safely. That's the idea of any radio control system, it also increases efficiency, but the main benefit of radio control is safety.

We will use 2.4GHz technology for the frequency, which is an adaptive intelligent frequency system, so it's never going to get interrupted so the operators can work problem-free. The main unit, that fits onto the side of the train, weighs 7.5kg. The actual part that they hold in their hands is about 3kg, and that fits around the waist, so there is no weight on the operator at all.

All of our radio equipment meets all the relevant safety standards, machinery safety is very important these days. All our radio systems meet the standards to be safely used on the machinery.

Image: MaxBögl

It's because of the electrical system on the train; there's a possibility that the electrical system on the train can fail. This is a very infrequent problem for Network Rail, but, if it does happen, it’s a major problem for them because you have a train stuck on the track, which can cause delays.

The radio kit that we've supplied is very much a worst-case scenario, which might sit on the train for years and never get used, but it’s there just in case.

Anything that's controlled electrically can be controlled by a radio control system. So, this could be adapted to all sectors of industry. We are always looking for new applications, it's a very competitive market so everybody's looking for niche markets to try and find new applications.

You generally see this technology used on cranes, hydraulic machines for lifting, basically anything that's controlled electrically. Sometimes it makes sense to use it, sometimes it just doesn't.

It’s very much a case that somebody has to come to us with an application, and then you have to design the system to suit and carry out that application. You could spend a lot of time developing something for a system that doesn't make sense because the guy might say it’s much safer to drive it from the cab himself.

We're very dependent on people approaching us and saying that they they think radio control could work for this. Then we can sit down with the application and design something to work for it.