Patent ID: 11866076
Assignee: SIEMENS MOBILITY GMBH
Field: Transport (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B | IPC B

Claim 11:
12. An occupied track device adapted to be connected to rails of a railroad track block, said occupied track device comprising:
a transmitter adapted to be connected to the rails of the block, the transmitter being controllable to transmit DC coded signals along the rails of the block during a DC function and to transmit low frequency AC signals along the rails of the block during an AC function;
a receiver adapted to be connected to the rails of the block, the receiver being controllable to receive DC coded signals along the rails of the block during the DC function and to receive low frequency AC signals along the rails of the block during the AC function; and
a control unit connected to the transmitter and receiver, said control unit being adapted to detect the presence of the train within the block based on the DC coded return signals along the rails and to determine the amount of unoccupied track behind the train based on impedance characteristics of AC return signals along the rails,
wherein the occupied track device provides an impedance,
wherein the occupied track device is calibrated in accordance with an impedance of another occupied track device, and the other occupied track device is calibrated in accordance with the impedance of the occupied track device, and
wherein said first and second occupied track devices are configured to determine one or more broken rails in the block, while a train is within the block, based on one or more impedance readings along the rails of the track.