Friday, 06 January 2006

When a serious fire at Alrewas signal box destroyed the telephone concentrator, Network Rail expected months of disruption to traffic while waiting for a replacement. STS Signals responded to the urgent request by delivering a replacement in just 6 days.

During the early hours of Sunday 23rd October 2005, a passing police patrol reported that Alrewas signal box was on fire. The signal box is a LNW Type 4 structure that fringes to Derby Powerbox on the South Staffordshire line. Once the fire service had attended and doused the flames, the box was found to be extensively smoke damaged and the heat had taken its toll on much of the internal fixtures. To the astonishment of all concerned, however, all the signalling equipment was found to operate correctly and the life of the box was saved – but the telephone concentrator needed to be replaced urgently.

Refurbishment of the signal box was quickly underway, and Network Rail approached the UK’s leading supplier of non-blocking telephone concentrator equipment, STS Signals in Wimborne, Dorset to supply a replacement CONCEPT 16 ‘Mini-Concentrator’. STS Signals’ rapid response team managed to manufacture and test the new system within six working days, and enabled the Network Rail installers to meet their refurbishment deadlines.

The STS Signals CONCEPT 16 Telephone Mini-Concentrator system has been designed to meet the exacting requirements of Rail Administrations, especially when working in an lectrified environment.

Based on the well established CONCEPT 32 design, CONCEPT 16 shares many of the same approved components, and is particularly valuable where smaller numbers of lines are required and space is at a premium. The CONCEPT 16 system is used to control up to 16 remote telephones via a single control point from where each telephone may be called individually.

STS Signals also designs, manufactures and repairs a wide range of electro-mechanical products for railways applications. Products include signalling relays, concentrators for trackside telecoms, Train Protection Warning System and Automatic Warning Systems.

The Company also provides ad hoc solutions to specific problems encountered by railway customers.

STS Signals is part of the STS International Group, which also includes STS Defence, STS Switchgear and STS Motors.