https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SelTrac
So data about the system configuration is stored on floppies instead of USB drives - so what? It might even have the benefit of nobody being able to easily corrupt the system by plugging in a USB drive loaded with some Stuxnet-type malware.
They cannot risk running two trains on the same track so they suspend the rail system whenever an international train is passing.
My country managed to invent a new train signalization, whatsapp and radio signalization.
We experience frequent train crashes and delays because of this. Don't take any technology for granted, corruption can make it cost more, take longer and make it more dangerous.
https://press.siemens.com/global/en/pressrelease/turkeys-mar...
Siemens says it has both CBTC and ERTMS. I imagine the interaction of the two is the problem, Elizabeth line in London was delayed by nearly 4 years because of the complexities of integrating multiple signalling systems (EL has 3 to contend with). It's actually a common problem of lines completed recently, as ERTMS wasn't considered robust enough to deal with "metro" style frequencies at the time, so CBTC was overlaid on top, but generally made every project that took this approach a bit of a disaster.
Now ERTMS is definitely mature enough for metro style frequencies new projects wouldn't use a proprietary CBTC system in conjunction with it.
There is wide reaching news articles about this topic, one example you can read it via google translate: https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/marmarayin-neden-kapatil...
I believe Siemens is actively lying to cover up the corruption scandal. This will blow up hugely after the elections.
There is a press ban on the corruption scandal, all news articles have been ordered to be deleted, the article I read about the scandal has also been purged from the web, this is the tweet of the esteemed journalist who was tipped about the corruption scandal: https://twitter.com/baristerkoglu/status/1565395320296587265
You can even see a train on the opposing line stopped at a signal before the platform.
You literally would have accidents daily if you had NO signals at all on such an intensive line. You cannot run more than one train on a line with no signals and not have accidents given the stopping distances of trains, you can't do it visually like a car. Perhaps you coudl get away with it on very long straight sections of track at lowish speed, but absolutely not a 30tph urban railway with curves, tunnels and frequent stations.
Maybe you mean there was no automatic train protection installed? That sounds very plausible to not be done right and disabled due to wanting the line open quickly or corruption.
Many train lines don't have ATP installed across the world. In the UK only a handful have lines have 'true' ATP which will stop the train if the train is speeding (right now it only stops it on most lines if it goes through a red signal, regardless of speed).
I have never seen opposing trains running side by side, they only use rail tracks one-way and do not run trains side by side even in the same direction.
They do the coordination via sight and communicate through whatsapp and radio.
There is absolutely 0 chance that you can do a 30tph service like you are describing. It simply isn't possible.
That article seems to be discussing how track works were being conducted without signal protection. Which is very different than no signals being installed.
The rest of your comment, regarding corruption scandal, seems totally possible.
Is it quite? In Germany they're planning to resignal the core of the Stuttgart S-Bahn system with ETCS, but found that there is still a bit of development work to do in order to actually unlock additional capacity using ETCS, and so the whole project is treated a bit as a sort of pioneering pilot scheme for high capacity applications of ETCS.
In the UK ETCS is now in service on the Thameslink core, but AFAIK it has yet to see its design capacity of 24 tph being fully utilised – peeking through realtimetrains.co.uk, it looks like the current maximum peak service is 20 tph.
Siemens Mobility installed and commissioned the signalling and control system, SCADA systems, and CBTC and ERTMS technology on the Gebze-Halkali rail line."
I have provided links above.
Do you have any backing for this? I couldn't find any (english language) complaints about signalization with a few searches.
[1] although the original poster was worried about various USB attacks etc, and that’s kinda how the emulator would be loaded nowadays?
So many of these old systems are unbelievably simple by todays standards in terms of the hardware we have to allow layer after layer of abstraction. Back in the day the complexity was squeezing it into limited spaces.
Just get an emulator.
Context matters.
That was my thought too --- and given the deteriorating skills that even malware programmers today have been affected by, fitting it on a floppy might be a challenge itself.
If the problem is that the system is just that old, and that's the only criticism, that sounds like it's a near-perfect-for-the-job system that's firmly at the bottom of the bathtub curve¹.
Electronics of the era can plausibly continue almost indefinitely: plenty of industrial and aeronautical equipment does, as well as things like the tank-like HP printers.
¹: if it's coming up the other side of the bathtub and failures across the system are accelerating, then they should watch out.