The Queensland Government’s New Generation Rollingstock (NGR) Project will see a significant increase in the South East Queensland train fleet meeting the growing demand for rail services. This project is the largest single investment by Queensland in trains and demonstrates the Government’s commitment to public transport in South East Queensland.

To cope with this increased electrical demand, Queensland Rail invested in new electrical infrastructure. This included the introduction of Static Frequency Converters. Queensland Rail undertook extensive electrical system modelling to investigate the impacts on the traction protection and SFC control equipment. The result was a high-resolution simulation allowing the evaluation of

traction load, regenerative braking and fault analysis in the time-domain.

In a joint effort, a purpose-built Mobile Short Circuit Test Rig was designed and fabricated at QENCOM’s Brisbane workshop. The test rig comprised of a vacuum circuit breaker mounted on a dual-axle trailer with integral safety, remote control and data gathering systems.