An Essex tourist attraction, the Audley End Miniature Railway, has 100,000 visitors a year. Its steam and diesel trains ride through the beautiful Audley End Estate Woodland designed by Capability Brown.
The railway now has a Wisenet video surveillance system made by Hanwha Techwin. Originally installed as a replacement for an old analogue CCTV system after a number of security incidents, the new IP network-based system is now also being used to keep an eye on the trains moving around the 2.4 kilometre track and visitor car parking. Besides security, it’s used for health and safety, and helping manage the queues waiting to buy tickets.
Fourteen Wisenet cameras and a Network Video Recorder (NVR) have been installed by IT infrastructure company Eastern Voice and Data, who also designed and installed the railway’s network and Wi-Fi.
Russell Marriott, Director of Norwich-based Eastern Voice and Data said: “We have previously installed Wisenet cameras for other clients and have been impressed with their robustness and reliability, as well as the quality of the captured images. As a result, we were able to confidently recommend to Audley End Miniature Railway that all cameras should be selected from the Wisenet camera range. We then worked closely with the Hanwha Techwin pre-sales team to select the most appropriate camera model for each location.”
Cameras
Among the 14 cameras are five QNO-7030R bullets and six QND-7010R domes. These are all able to capture 4 megapixel high definition images of objects regardless of the lighting, the makers say, with built-in IR (infra-red) lighting.
Part of the Wisenet Q camera series, the cameras also feature de-focus, motion and tamper detection, hallway view and lens distortion correction, while support for Power over Ethernet (PoE) has negated the need for the installer to fit separate power supplies and cabling to each camera location. Footage is recorded on a 16 channel Wisenet XRN-1610S NVR, which comes with a PoE switch.
Bob Ottaway, General Manager of the Audley End Miniature Railway said: “Our old CCTV was well past its ‘use-by’ date and lacked the functionality required to help us maintain a safe environment for our visitors and staff, as well as deter would be intruders and vandals. We are now able to closely monitor all activity throughout the site during opening hours, and with the help of the Wisenet Mobile App, we can also be remotely alerted via smartphones and tablets to any suspicious activity when we are closed.”
