On December 26, the Beidou Positioning Based Train Autonomous Control System (TACN) developed by CASCO was officially launched on the railway in the mining area of China Pingmei Shenma Group, marking an important upgrade and key breakthrough in the technical equipment of local railways.

On the morning of December 26, the opening ceremony and trial operation was successfully held at the No. 9 Mine Station, attended by Kong Zhongwei, Secretary of the Party Committee, Zhang Yantong, Director, and Wei Yi, Deputy Director of the Railway Transportation Department of China Pingmei Shenma Group, Jiang Jianhua, Vice President of Technology of CASCO, and other leaders. The leaders and guests listened to the introduction of the functions of the TACN system and the implementation of the project, went to the station’s train operation room and equipment room for on-site inspection, and gave unanimous praise to the application of the system.

Opening ceremony

Moving block represents the technological development trend of railway train control systems and is recognized in the industry as a best choice for improving safety indicators and transportation efficiency. CASCO launched this moving block smart train control project based on the Beidou positioning system in response to the needs of local freight railways for technological upgrading. The project commenced in November 2020. After three years, the engineering application research of the TACN system and the field test of equipment were completed, providing a complete smart solution for improving railway transportation capacity and efficiency in Pingmei’s mining area.

In this project, CASCO provided RBC, TSRS, TIS, differential base station servers, axle counters, passive balises and other ground equipment for No. 9 Mine, Miaopu and Baofeng stations, and as well as autonomous on-board equipment for 37 locomotives of 4 models. At the same time, the equipment at the CTC center and stations was upgraded for adaptability.

The TACN system uses Beidou satellites for autonomous train positioning, which reduces the dependence on ground track circuits and balises, thus simplifying the system structure and equipment composition. As it can support multi-train tracking in the district, the train operation interval can be greatly shortened, which demonstrates its advantages of high efficiency, safety, low cost, and convenient O&M.

Train departure at the opening ceremony

As the system is put into use, the moving block mode has changed the previous restriction that only a single train could run in the same district, while multiple locomotives can operate at the same time. The train tracking interval has been shortened from 25 minutes to 4 minutes, greatly improving the transportation efficiency. This successful implementation of CASCO's innovative product not only provides new ideas for improving the quality and efficiency of local railway development, but will also has a demonstrative and leading significance for the upgrading of technological equipment in this field towards intellectualization.