Realisation of fire and intrusion protection at the “Diabolo” train tunnel complex at Brussels Int’l Airport

•The implementation of an automatic response system for emergency safety equipment.•The elaboration of 157 fire scenarios to cover the whole tunnel and station complex.•The importance of a smoke evacuation system in relation to the fire location on a train.•The assistance of this automatic system to the fire brigade intervention.•The execution of a real fire test with a train entering and stopping in the tunnel.

Between October 2007 and June 2012, the Belgian Railways Group and its partners built a new railway tunnel under the main runway of Brussels Airport, to unlock the – also enlarged – station from the unidirectional connection that was available at that time. To facilitate evacuation, intervention and rescue in this newly built 4 km long infrastructure of the so-called Diabolo project, we designed an automated fire scenario system which is part of the tunnel’s and station’s safety concept based on EU Directive 2001/16/EC, NFPA 130 and UNECE TRANS/AC.9/9. Furthermore we implemented access control and intrusion detection as part of the complex’ security concept. In this paper we present our design and our experiences of setting up the system. We also present our real “burning” train test, which took place during the commissioning phase of the project and was a unique opportunity to test the system’s response to “a train on fire” entering the tunnel complex.