Changes on the railways. “It will not be possible to interfere with communication systems”

Soon it will be impossible to interfere with the railway communication system, announced Minister of Infrastructure Dariusz Klimczak on Tuesday. He added that some goods will be transported only in a digital communication system between the driver and the dispatcher, and the radio stop system will be encrypted.

Two acts of sabotage took place on the Warsaw-Lublin route over the weekend; during the first one, the explosion of an explosive destroyed the railway track. Elsewhere, a train with 475 passengers had to brake suddenly due to a damaged railway line. On Monday, the prosecutor's office initiated an investigation into acts of terrorist sabotage.

What will the ministry do?

Infrastructure Minister Dariusz Klimczak spoke on Tuesday on TVN24 about the actions his ministry is taking to protect the railway against future acts of sabotage. As Klimczak explained, regardless of the weekend events, the ministry is in the final stage of negotiations with contractors of several digital systems that are intended to increase the safety of rail transport in Poland.

Klimczak said that on Tuesday he had a conversation with his deputy responsible for the railway and participated in a briefing with the authorities of PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe. – Together with carriers, we are doing everything to digitize and secure the Polish railway. Soon it will be impossible to interfere with railway communication systems, he pointed out.

– I already know the dates for some of the systems, e.g. for the new timetable, under which certain goods can only be transported using a system of digital communication between the driver and the dispatcher, not analog. At the end or the turn of this year, I also hope that encryption of the “radio-stop” signal will be implemented – he announced.

The “radio-stop” system allows you to automatically stop all trains in a given region by transmitting a signal on an appropriate radio frequency. In recent years, there have been numerous cases of unauthorized signal sending and emergency stopping of trains despite the lack of danger. Among other things, in August 2023, several trains were stopped after transmitting unauthorized “radio stop” signals on PKP frequencies. The perpetrators took advantage of a loophole in the system – the commands were neither encrypted nor required authorization. During the attack, the Russian national anthem and a fragment of Putin's speech appeared in the background. (PAP)

wst/ mmu/