Automation Systems from Siemens Control Europe's Largest Marshaling Yard

The first classification tracks are due to go into service as early as August next year. The order is worth 18 million euros. The Maschen marshaling yard at the gates of Hamburg is the main hub for freight traffic of the seaports of Hamburg and Bremerhaven as well as toward Scandinavia. Here the cars of regional, national and international freight trains are split and made up into new trains for the next leg of their journey. In order to provide for the increasing importance of freight transportation at the seaports, marshaling equipment from the seventies is to be upgraded to the state of the art as part of comprehensive construction measures.

The modification of the classification yard will be carried out while normal operation continues. Siemens will be modernizing 48 classification tracks and the classification zone of the South-North (MSN) hump yard and 40 classification tracks of the North-South (MNS) hump yard. The MSR 32 control system deployed by Siemens controls the radio-operated locomotives, the routing of rolling stock and their speed at the master, intermediate and group retarders and, by means of the haulage systems, makes up the cars ready for coupling in the classification tracks. The routing control sets the switches for all the cuts from the hump to the classification tracks fully automatically. A continuous computation of the variable hump speed and cut monitoring enables the risk of any bumping or catch-ups to be avoided.

During the modernization phase the control system from Siemens must be able to control both the old and new classification systems. Siemens’ Industry Sector (Erlangen) is the leading global supplier of production, transportation, building and lighting technologies. With a full range of automation technologies and comprehensive sector-specific solutions, Siemens boosts the productivity, efficiency and flexibility of its customers in industry and infrastructure. The Industry Sector comprises six divisions: Building Technologies, Drive Technologies, Industry Automation, Industry Solutions, Mobility and Osram.

With a worldwide workforce of some 222,000, in the fiscal year ending September 2008 Siemens Industry achieved an operating result of € 3.86 billion with sales totaling € 38 billion. http://www.siemens.com/industryThe Mobility Division (Erlangen) is the world's leading supplier of transportation and logistics solutions. With its “Complete mobility” approach, the Mobility Division pursues its objective of networking different transportation systems for the purpose of efficiently carrying both people and cargo. “Complete mobility” combines competences in operations management system for road and rail transportation technology with solutions for airport logistics, postal automation and railway electrification, as well as rolling stock in mass transit, regional and main-line systems, integrated package systems and future-oriented service concepts. www.siemens.com/mobility