Abstract: A method for monitoring a railway track may include: detecting a first monitoring signal by a distributed acoustic sensor at an initial position while a rail vehicle passes the initial position, the distributed acoustic sensor being arranged along the track; detecting a second monitoring signal by the distributed acoustic sensor at least one predefined position along the track while a rail vehicle passes the predefined position; and comparing the first and second monitoring signals with each other. The first monitoring signal includes features that each relate to one axle of the rail vehicle passing the initial position. The second monitoring signal includes features that each relate to one axle of the rail vehicle passing the predefined position. The comparing includes counting the features relating to axles of the respective passing rail vehicle for the first and second monitoring signals. Furthermore, a monitoring unit may monitor a railway track.

Abstract: A method for monitoring a railway track (11) is provided, the method comprising detecting monitoring signals (MS) by a distributed acoustic sensor (10) being arranged along the track (11), where each monitoring signal (MS) comprises a monitoring signal value (MSV) for a first measurement segment (12) of the distributed acoustic sensor (10) and a monitoring signal value (MSV) for a second measurement segment (22) of the distributed acoustic sensor (10), determining a first event monitoring signal value (EV1) for the first measurement segment (12) from the monitoring signal values (MSV) that are detected during the passage of a rail vehicle over the position of the first measurement segment (12), determining a second event monitoring signal value (EV2) for the second measurement segment (22) from the monitoring signal values (MSV) that are detected during the passage of a rail vehicle over the position of the second measurement segment (22), and determining a difference value (DV) where the difference value (DV