Rail Overview

Findlay Irvine’s association with the railway industry began in the mid 1960’s, when a coach heating controller was developed on behalf of the Southern Region. The next railway product was a switch point heating controller which brought large cost savings by only switching the heating on when it was required, rather than leaving it on over the winter season as had been done previously. In conjunction with British Rail and then Railtrack, the switch point heating system was developed and refined into the Icelert 407M that is used throughout the UK today. Other products include switch point heating monitoring systems, which monitor and report faults on switch heating installations before they cause train delays and of which there are several hundred in operation in the UK, and weather monitoring systems which provide weather data and site specific or route-based rail/overhead and general weather forecasts. More recently, a points machine monitoring system has been developed in conjunction with a major points machine manufacturer. Trial systems have been installed with a view to predicting the failure of the points machine so that maintenance can be carried out before a failure causes train delays and puts lives at risk. Findlay Irvine remains committed to providing quality monitoring and control equipment to the rail industry, where Findlay Irvine’s in-house experience in electronic, electrical mechanical, software and communications engineering can bring innovative and cost effective solutions.