The scope and motivation of the work reported in this paper relates to the virtues and means of active condition-based maintenance of railway signalling equipment, train-stops and points machines in the first instance. An overview of evolving maintenance principles are introduced and their application to railways considered. This provides the motivation for the development and implementation of modern computer-based condition monitoring techniques. These provide early warning signals which could be used to increase the reliability and hence quality of the service to passengers, as well as to complement and direct the maintenance work of permanent way and signalling engineers in order to make efficient use of resources and save costs associated with too frequent maintenance routines.
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