Effects of Strong Geomagnetic Storms on Northern Railways in Russia

In 2000 to 2005, 15 severe magnetic storms took place, and each of them had a response in the operation of the Signalization, Centralization and Blockage (SCB) system in the high-latitude parts of Russian railways. This response was revealed as false signals about the occupation of someparts of the railways. It turned out that such the signals on the Northern railways (~58-64degN) appeared exactly at the times of the main phases of the strongest geomagnetic storms characterized by geomagnetic Dst and Kp(Ap) indices. The analysis performed shows an almost 100%-correlation between the SCB anomalies and the strongest (Kp = 8 or 9) geomagnetic storms. The obvious reasons for the anomalies are geomagnetically induced currents (GIC) during the significant strengthening of geomagnetic activity.