Detonator (railway)

A Petards is a small explosive device that is mounted on railroad tracks and explodes with a loud bang when he is run over by a rail vehicle. Three consecutively set apart detonators were used to give trains a Nothaltauftrag.

Detonators are then used when danger areas must be secured and the time for any other signaling is not sufficient or if there is a risk that another signal can not be perceived, for example, due to fog or blowing snow from crew members. To give the bang signal, several (usually three) detonators are briefly interpreted consecutively at a sufficient distance from the danger point. Even the explosion of a single Petards was considered a stop signal.

Since the amendment of the Railway signal regime in 1986, there is no longer the bang signal Sh 4 in Germany. On the trains they have not been already some years ago carried.

An exception to this rule is with the series 181, ICE 3 MF and all other series that have been approved for the Belgian or French rail network, since the SNCF in this shared for the France - transport German ICE 3 on the usual in France backup facilities - and this also includes detonators - there.

In Britain, the trains are still equipped with detonators.

Detonators are some of the dangerous goods. You are 1 ( explosive solids) classified in risk class, the UN numbers of detonators are 0192, 0193, 0492 and 0493rd for the storage and handling of special rules, so the storage container of detonators in the drive vehicles are usually sealed.

• Command
• Pyrotechnic unit