Railway Board Chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav on Sunday asserted that the Indian Railways has been giving priority to the Automatic Train Protection System (ATPS) of the European rail systems and, as a pilot project, it would implemented for about 650 km of the golden quadrilateral corridor.
It would be later covered for the entire rail network of 68,000 km along with the indigenously developed Train Collision Avoidance System (TICAS) with the initial test runs completed, he said at the 62nd annual day celebrations of the Indian Railways Institute of Signal Engineering and Telecommunication (IRISET) Tarnaka.
The Railways has come a long way in imbibing modern technology for signalling and telecommunication from the earlier manual and lever pulling says. Yet, even fool-proof technology could have a human failure as it happened recently when a local train jumped signal to crash into an incoming express train at Kacheguda, he said.
Therefore, the effective solution is to go for automative systems like European Train Control Systems and TICAS to remove the human element which could help prevent such mishaps. Institutes like IRISET are crucial for the Indian Railways as it was involved in imparting modern technology to the staff and managers, he added.
Chief secretary S.K. Joshi said Indian Railways is the economic growth engine of the nation and it represented truly all India character among the organisations and said that system change requires tremendous efforts from time to time.
IRISET curriculum has been well designed in its training modules to make the complex signalling and telecommunication sector to a simple way for the benefit of trainees, besides bridging the gap of knowledge in the field for the benefit of improving train operations, said SCR General Manager Gajanan Mallya.
Earlier, Mr. Yadav inaugurated ‘Electronic Interlocking – Testing set up Lab’ while Railway Board Member (S&T) Pradeep Kumar inaugurated new ‘Power Systems Lab’. Technical magazine ‘Gyandeep’ annual issue and revised Signal and Telecommunications code manual were released on the occasion.
