In February this year, a senior Indian Railways official had flagged the faulty signalling system which is now suspected to be the cause of the tragic train accident involving two express trains and a goods train in the South Eastern Railway Zone on June 2 that has left 275 passengers dead and over 900 injured.
Read the February annexure flagging the faulty signalling system here
The official had precisely pointed to the issue of how trains given the green signal to pass through a particular line got into the adjacent line. Pointing out that a major disaster was averted due to the alertness of a Loco Pilot in South Western Railway (SWR), he said the “incident indicates that there are serious flaws in the system, where the route of dispatch gets altered after a train starts on signals with correct appearance of route in the Station master’s panel. This contravenes the essence and basic principles of interlocking”.
An infographic depicting how the Odisha train crash may have happened based on the preliminary probe by Indian Railway Ministry.
Also read | Railways says ‘signalling interference’ behind Odisha train wreck
In his letter to the Principal Chief Signal and Telecommunications Engineer, Hari Shankar Verma, Principal Chief Operations Manager, referred to the “serious unsafe incident” that occurred at the Hosadurga Road Station in the Birur-Chikjajur section of the Mysore Division on February 8, 2023. He marked copies of his letter to the General Manager of the SWR and others.
Collision averted
Flagging the issue, he had said that a major accident had been averted the very next day due to the alertness of the Loco Pilot of Train Number 12649, the Sampark Kranthi Express. Noticing that the signal had been cleared for passing in one line but the path was altered to another track where a goods train was stationed, the Loco Pilot had brought the train to a halt, thus averting a head-on collision.
Mr. Verma had said the Signal Maintainer had not served a disconnection memo to the Station Master to seek his permission to carry out repair of signal failure. Had he done so, the Station Master would have followed the protocol for the safe movement of trains.
Urgent action sought
“The present incident must be viewed very seriously and immediate corrective actions are required to be taken to rectify the system faults and also sensitizing the staff for not venturing into shortcuts leading to major mishap,” he had said.
The official had further pointed out that if the signal maintenance system was not monitored and corrected immediately, it would result in recurrence and serious accidents. “It is high time that some serious work is done on this front to ensure that the precious lives and safety of travelling public and railway men are not put in risk,” he had said.
The preliminary investigation report in the devastating accident involving two express trains and a goods train in Balasore district of Odisha says it was caused by a faulty signalling system. Senior Railways officials say that though a signal was given for the Coromandel Express to proceed on the main line, the train got into the loop line and collided with a goods train.
