ALDRIDGE
A HISTORY OF INNOVATION AND TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE ALREADY SYNONYMOUS WITH QUALITY ROAD TRAFFIC SIGNALLING DESIGN, MANUFACTURE, INSTALLATION AND MAINTENANCE FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS, ALDRIDGE IS NOW EARNING ACCOLADES IN THE RAILWAY SIGNALLING INDUSTRY. RAILWAY SIGNAL MANUFACTURER Aldridge recently achieved Authorised Engineering Organisation status with Transport for NSW, recognising its excellence in innovation and engineering. It’s further testament to the strides the company has made since being established in the early 1990s as a local manufacturer of railway signals. Since then, Aldridge has supplied signals and products to Sydney Trains, ARTC, CRN, Queensland Rail, Aurizon, PTSSA, PTAWA, TasRail as well as exporting signals to Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and New Zealand. A privately owned Indigenous Australian company, Aldridge Railway Signals (signal manufacturer) and its sister company Aldridge Signal Infrastructure (signals installation) employ more than 100 Australians in this high technology sector. Aldridge can develop and certify new products, prepare client concept designs, specification including rail signal functional specification, supply and manufacture, complete site installation, testing, commissioning, site demobilisation and warranty. In 1995, Aldridge Railway Signals designed, manufactured, and commissioned Australia’s first LED (light-emitting diode) rail signals into the Sydney Underground System, better known as “The City Circle”. This re-program replaced all incandescent signals with LEDs. In 1998 Aldridge’s high standards of engineering excellence were recognised when it achieved compliance with ISO 9001 for a Quality Management System in the design and manufacture 16
of railway signals and associated hardware. Expanding its product offering, in 2018 Aldridge became the Australian distributor for Kyosan, which was first established as Tokyo Electric Industry Co in 1917. Since then, Kyosan Electric has been developing and producing various products, among which are many Japan’s and world’s first products. These products include platform screen doors and mechanical gap fillers for Metro train systems as well as perway products such as points and point motors right through to interlocking systems. In 2019 Aldridge supplied the first Smart signals for the new North-West Rail, fully automated and driverless system, and at the end of that year Aldridge ITS launched the Wireless Level Crossing (WLX). This new approach brings new
savings, with the WLX controller only requiring low power operation supplied by solar panels and 12V battery, which saves on power infrastructure. Communication back to a central server uses 3G/4G to log and manage system data with user access managed from the server. Should sensors need to be located in cuttings or on bends, relay towers (repeaters) are set up between the sensor transmission tower and the railway crossing to prevent any transmission loss. This approach also saves on cabling as there is no requirement to trench and install cables from the wheel sensors, which may be located kilometres from the level crossing. In 2020 Aldridge achieved recognition as an Australian Indigenous company, registered with Supply Nation as a Certified Supplier. Capping off all these achievements
Aldridge Signal Infrastructure provided services to the Moorebank Intermodal Terminal.
THE AUSTRALASIAN RAIL DIRECTORY 2022
