In order to harmonise the communication systems between the train and the
railway control centres over the European territory, a GSM-R (Global System
for Mobile communications – Railways) communication network is
progressively deployed along the European railway network. However, the
GSM-R communications on board high speed trains can be disturbed by the
transient electromagnetic (EM) disturbances induced by the sliding contact
between the catenary and the pantograph. In order to study the immunity of
the embedded GSM-R communication system against these transient
electromagnetic disturbances, the transient interferences induced on the
GSM-R antennas on board trains, were characterised in terms of time and
amplitude parameters. Measurement campaigns were carried out in France to
collect a large number of induced EM interferences on GSM-R antennas fixed
on the train roof. With the ultimate goal of generating transient noise
scenarios representative of those detected by the antennas, and performing
immunity tests in laboratory, statistical distributions of the
characteristics (rise time, time duration, repetition rate, amplitude) of
the transients are presented. This paper presents the different steps of the
analysis of the transient disturbances and the generation of the transient
EM scenarios.