Russia: RZD TV has aired an extended feature on the pilot project to digitalise the Chelyabinsk-Glavny marshalling yard of Russian Railways (RZD), under way since 2023. It included a detailed look at the robotic and unmanned solutions being introduced.
The Digital Railway Station (DRS) project aims to raise the yard’s processing capacity through end-to-end digitalisation of its operating processes. Russian Railways claim that the Chelyabinsk-Glavny yard digitalisation project is first of its kind in the world.
As of May, the Chelyabinsk DRS was assessed as 80% complete, with the key task for 2026 being to carry out comprehensive trials and to complete construction and installation works and R&D. The DRS project is subsequently set to cover a further 24 yards across the network of Russian Railways. RZD and the developers put the expected benefit of automating a single yard at more than RUB 1 bln ($13.57 mln), while digitalising all the marshalling yards announced could deliver a combined saving of up to RUB 100 bln ($1.36 bln) a year.
Digital Railway Station project by Russian Railways. Source: RZD TV
The report gave particular attention to the TEM23 and TEM7A shunting locomotives working at the yard, which are fitted with the Avtomashinist (Automatic Driver) system and an obstacle-detection module from NIIAS, the RZD research and technology institute. The locomotives push wagon cuts onto the hump on their own, with the driver only supervising the process. A total of 26 shunting locomotives equipped with the Avtomashinist system are to be supplied to Chelyabinsk-Glavny: 11 new TEM23A units from TMH and 15 rebuilt TEM7A units from Sinara Transport Machines.
The feature also showed the trial operation of mobile robotic systems. These include modules for automatically releasing the brakes on freight wagons and for clearing the space between tracks. The robots’ batteries are reported to last five hours on a single charge, which takes three hours to complete. The cameras and lidar fitted to the robotic systems can work at any time of day and in varying weather conditions.
The yard is also testing a robotic system for uncoupling freight wagons. It currently operates at a humping speed of 5 km/h, with that figure planned to rise to 7–10 km/h in future. The number of such systems could eventually be increased to six units.
Automated fixed systems for monitoring the condition of freight wagons and locomotives operate on the approach tracks to the yard. The inspection posts are equipped to diagnose rolling stock from every side. They detect almost 70 technical and more than 40 commercial faults on freight wagons, and 24 parameters on locomotives. The laser-and-camera systems record wagon running-gear parameters to within 1 mm, along with brake-block thickness and any raising or lowering of the friction wedge.
