Railway Application - Fixed Installations - Guidelines on OCL earthing systems for safety in tunnels

1st edition, 2016-9

This IRS was drawn up to provide all railways with standard guidelines to better manage safety in railway tunnels through appropriate OCL emergency earthing systems
This IRS is linked with other IRS prepared by the same UIC experts group and published by UIC  on maintenance guidelines, diagnosis aspects, workers' safety and incidents evaluation in the railway energy systems, as:

• IRS 70014 “Maintenance guidelines for overhead contact lines”, that defines the main parameters to be checked and observed and the maintenance activities to be carried out in order to ensure the expected OCL performance;
• IRS 70015 “Diagnosis of the OCL conditions” that gives information on the diagnostic systems in order to characterize the behaviour of the OCL in static or dynamic conditions;
• IRS 70016 “Safety measures to be adopted when working on or nearby overhead contact lines” that provides guidelines for improving the safety of the personnel working on or in the vicinity of OCLs;
• IRS 70017 “Evaluation of incidents on the railway energy systems” that provide guidelines for the evaluation of energy system incidents based on uniform criteria and common objectives.

The IRS 70018 can be applied to energy systems operating at the following voltages:
1.5 kV and 3 kV dc;
15 kV – 16 2/3 Hz;
25 kV – 50 Hz.