New Delhi: Months before the 2 June Balasore train accident that killed 288 people, a Railway Board member had flagged five incidents of unsafe train rides between January and March on account of alleged shortcut methods adopted by the staff for clearing signals, according to a letter shared by the Congress Wednesday.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is probing the accident involving the Coromandel Express, the Yeshvantpur-Howrah Superfast, and a goods train.
In the letter dated 3 April, R.N. Sunkar, Railway Board member (Infrastructure), wrote to the general managers of all zonal railways about how officers and field staff need to be sensitized from a safety point of view to ensure that the integrity of the “signalling system is of utmost importance”.
“Recently, five incidents on the unsafe side involving points have taken place on various zonal railways” and involved signal and telecom staff reconnecting signalling gears “without proper testing of points”, “wrong wiring during preparatory works…such practices reflect dilution of manual and codal provisions. Same are potential hazards to safety in train operations and need to be stopped,” the letter read.
The above incidents, it said, indicate that despite repeated instructions from the Railway Board, the ground situation is not improving and signaling staff are continuing to adopt shortcut methods for clearing signals, and that “these aspects need to be reviewed in weekly safety meetings at divisional and headquarter level.”
The Congress highlighted this letter with party general secretary Jairam Ramresh tweeting whether the CBI will also inquire into why the letter was written and what action was taken as part of the follow-up.
As the CBI investigates the Balasore train disaster will it also inquire why this letter was written and what follow up action was taken? pic.twitter.com/tYxqxHTko4
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) June 14, 2023
A senior railway ministry official, who did not want to be named, told ThePrint that the signalling issues are caused either due to improper execution of maintenance work, repair work done in a hurry or the staff not being properly trained.
“This is a common problem on-ground. There are over three lakh locations where a route changing mechanism is present. The signalling software can be fooled due to improper wiring on the track or in the relay room. This is because signalling works on ground inputs, and if it gets a wrong input, it will operate based on the same,” the official said.
When reached for a comment, no immediate response was provided by the Railway ministry spokesperson. This copy will be updated as and when a response is received.
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Signalling issues
In his letter, Sunkar also attached details about five incidents that occurred between January and March: in Lucknow (1 January), Hosadurga (8 February), Ludhiana (18 February), Kharkopar (28 February) and Bagratawa (22 March), which included an incident of a train entering a wrong track due to lack of testing after maintenance work was carried out.
Flagging that after attending to signalling failures, the staff reconnected signalling gears without proper testing of tracks, Sunkar wrote that work in station area or yards should be done in consultation with the signalling department as cables, sensors and detectors on the track may be damaged during track management work.
“The gears should be reconnected only after proper testing to ascertain safe certification of the signalling system,” Sunkar wrote.
“Lack of training, shortage of staff and hurried work are the causes for such incidents, and this is not a technical failure. It’s a management failure,” the senior official cited above told ThePrint.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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