Rare solar storms could cause rail network chaos, scientists warn (BBC)

[InkyScrolls]

Rare solar storms could cause rail network chaos, scientists warn

Rare solar storms could cause chaos on the UK's railways by triggering "powerful magnetic disturbances", scientists have warned.

A study at Lancaster University found the celestial events could disrupt the network's electrical systems and cause signals to switch from red to green.

Researcher Cameron Patterson said the "relatively rare" storms needed to be "taken seriously" by the rail industry.

However, Network Rail said it considered the risk to be "very small".

Is this scaremongering from the university (my alma mater, though a very different department!), or something actually worth noting?

 

[greyman42]

No doubt we will hear it announced over the station PAs as the reason for cancelled/late running trains.
" The next train is cancelled due to a rare solar storm"!

 

[Lucy1501]

Rare solar storms will cause a lot more problems than just the railway!

To put it this way, everyday tons of radiation blasts the earth, some gets through the atmosphere, and an even smaller amount just so happens to hit computer hard disks, flipping a bit and corrupting data.

At a larger scale, this has the ability to cripple computers on power grids, water distribution networks, and other critical infrastructure.

With the move to computer based interlocking the risk of this is somewhat higher than before. Old magnetic relay installations also have a chance of being affected. That being said, the chances of this happening are incredibly slim, and there’s tons of redundancy in interlocking.

Modern day computer based interlocking uses something called majority voting. There are multiple computers all working on the same thing, and they all vote on the result. By doing this, if one or two have made an error, they are overruled. Similar happens during communications.

 

[swt_passenger]

Previously came up here in 2022, as discussed in this thread:

Unusual reason for my recent experience of delays on the railway

Over the last couple of weeks I have noticed an increase in the frequency of delays attributed to signal failure. I have thought that one cause of this is cable theft, but I've just come across another reason I've never previously considered, solar storms...

www.railforums.co.uk

The same university department, fancy that….

 

[yorksrob]

This made the front page of the Daily Star, under the headline "Euston, we have a problem".

 

[greyman42]

I remember the sky was going to fall in on January 1 2000.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

A solar storm knocked out a lot of stuff in Canada about 30 years ago, so yes - it can happen if it's strong enough and aims straight at us.

 

[DarloRich]

Has someone been watching Flash Gordon?

 

[MotCO]

Presumably it will affect all the data stored in clouds

 

[dangerousdids2]

I read a while ago about the effects of solar radiation on railway signalling systems and that a lot of it has protection from events like this?

 

[Merseysider]

BBC? Take it with a pinch of salt.

 

[AndrewE]

Rare solar storms will cause a lot more problems than just the railway!

With the move to computer based interlocking the risk of this is somewhat higher than before.
Modern day computer based interlocking uses something called majority voting. There are multiple computers all working on the same thing, and they all vote on the result. By doing this, if one or two have made an error, they are overruled. Similar happens during communications.

Let's hope that the majority / all of them haven't been fried then. Nothing would move for a long time.

I read a while ago about the effects of solar radiation on railway signalling systems and that a lot of it has protection from events like this?

If that was the case (don't the military call it "hardened?") I am sure someone in authority woud have trumpeted it by now, so the answer is "probably not!"

BBC? Take it with a pinch of salt.

Yes, of course they are all pinkoes trying to undermine the government.
If you had suggested that it might be another bit of Russian-inspired disinformation intended to weaken our confidence in our infrastructure I might have thought you had a point.

 

[Merseysider]

Yes, of course they are all pinkoes trying to undermine the government.
If you had suggested that it might be another bit of Russian-inspired disinformation intended to weaken our confidence in our infrastructure I might have thought you had a point.

Not quite sure what you’re on about there

 

[Deepgreen]

BBC? Take it with a pinch of salt.

I'd trust the BBC over the Daily Star any day! Of course, as control systems become more and more delicate and based on finely-tuned electronics, the risk grows. The same applies, I assume, to trains' systems, and all other such electronic networks. The issue, presumably, is will the failures be safe-side or not.

 

[Merseysider]

I'd trust the BBC over the Daily Star any day!

As would I! The Star is really amongst the lowest of the low but the BBC has its flaws.

 

[flitwickbeds]

I remember the sky was going to fall in on January 1 2000.

And it only didn't because of the many, many hours of work put in by programmers to fix systems before this date.

There is another, similar, although much smaller, event going to happen in 2038. Programmers are working now to ensure no impact on that date.

 

[Trackman]

Is this scaremongering from the university (my alma mater, though a very different department!), or something actually worth noting?

It's absolute twaddle. We had a major solar flare a couple of years back, I didn't see any signal aspects changing or interfering with GSMR. Things are built very differently these days.

 

[75A]

Usually it's to justify funding.

 

[dk1]

Load of old squit.

 

[stuving]

Previously came up here in 2022, as discussed in this thread:

Unusual reason for my recent experience of delays on the railway

Over the last couple of weeks I have noticed an increase in the frequency of delays attributed to signal failure. I have thought that one cause of this is cable theft, but I've just come across another reason I've never previously considered, solar storms...

www.railforums.co.uk

The same university department, fancy that….

It's the same PhD student, Cameron Patterson. He started in 2021 with a description of what he'd be doing, and rehashed that last year for another conference. I can't see any sign of a new publication, so maybe it's just reporters not checking the history.

The point of his research is that DC track circuits can be affected by the geomagnetic currents that flow in the ground underneath them. That's true, but it's also quite easy to observe and measure. So is the change in the geomagnetic field that drives the currents, so you can correlate the two and thus predict how big a magnetic disturbance could cause a wrong-side failure.

That's roughly what the planned research was, using some measurements to be taken by Atkins. Inevitably these days it involved him modelling the relevant stretch of line (Preston-Lancaster) and its environment. I did wonder how easy it is to find stretches of main lines still using DC track circuits, as it's being replaced and I don't think any is now being put in. And the disturbance is a DC current, so other forms of train detection are not affected.

 

[dangerousdids2]

It's the same PhD student, Cameron Patterson. He started in 2021 with a description of what he'd be doing, and rehashed that last year for another conference. I can't see any sign of a new publication, so maybe it's just reporters not checking the history.

The point of his research is that DC track circuits can be affected by the geomagnetic currents that flow in the ground underneath them. That's true, but it's also quite easy to observe and measure. So is the change in the geomagnetic field that drives the currents, so you can correlate the two and thus predict how big a magnetic disturbance could cause a wrong-side failure.

That's roughly what the planned research was, using some measurements to be taken by Atkins. Inevitably these days it involved him modelling the relevant stretch of line (Preston-Lancaster) and its environment. I did wonder how easy it is to find stretches of main lines still using DC track circuits, as it's being replaced and I don't think any is now being put in. And the disturbance is a DC current, so other forms of train detection are not affected.

Yeah I just found the same story. Remember reading it on Ian visits last year.