Zimbabwe`s National Railways has commissioned a Z$144 million microwave telecommunication system, which was supplied, installed and commissioned by South African based ATIO Telecoms. The system will facilitate better traffic monitoring by railway headquarters in Bulawayo, and was funded by the World Bank.
It consists of eight high capacity microwave radio links that form the `backbone`, and eleven lower capacity radio links. These are integrated with the existing train signalling system and connect all railway sidings along the tracks to the control centre in Bulawayo. It also connects the PABX and LAN networks in Bulawayo and Dabuka.
The existing mobile radio communication system was also replaced in order to provide better communications in the shunting yards. Test equipment and spares were supplied as part of the contract, and the training given to NRZ technicians will ensure that the system is efficiently maintained.
"Railway employees working along the line will now be able to keep in constant touch with headquarters," says Samson Zumbika, acting GM of the National Railways of Zimbabwe. "The completion of the project means we will be able to cut down on unnecessary delays which were previously caused by a poor communications network." He claims the new system is "immune" to power failure, as it has back-up batteries and generators, which provide stand-by power for days.
The NRZ chief signals engineer, David Scott, says: "the parastatal previously depended on copper cable routes which linked Bulawayo with Dabuka. This was difficult to maintain and operate, because whenever there was a fault, technicians would have to drive along the railway line to establish the source of the problem. This lead to unnecessary delays and an annual loss of Z$50 million, due to delays in transporting goods and passengers between Bulawayo and Dabuka." He said the NRZ had also been losing about Z$50 million a year to copper thieves and lightning damage.
"Now these will be things of the past, because not only does the new microwave system do away with the copper, it provides reliable state of the art communications that can be managed from one central point and maintained efficiently by our staff".
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