Lightning protection measures are required for railway signalling systems because the suspension of operation or delays of train due to lightning may cause social confusion. We carried out full-scale lightning surge tests at a level crossing in the field to measure lightning overvoltage when a lightning surge current was injected into the rail or the wayside ground. In addition, we implemented experiments on countermeasures to suppress lightning overvoltage on the devices for the level crossing. There are no precedents that have carried out the above-mentioned experiments until now. This paper describes the factors to cause lightning damage and effective lightning protection measures for level crossings.

Copyright (c) 2004 Railway Technical Research Institute