Friday’s triple train accident that left 288 dead and over 1000 injured has raised alarm bells over safety concerns for railway passengers.
The coaches of Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express capsized after crashing into the coaches of Coromandel Express that had scattered on the adjacent track.
Preliminary investigations, a copy of which is with PTI, have revealed that the Coromandel Express train entered an adjacent loop and collided with a stationery goods train which led to the derailment.
Meanwhile, the other passenger train – Yashwantpur-Howrah Express – passed through the down main line, colliding with Coromandel Express thus leading to two of its coaches overturning and derailing.
While it was earlier said that a signalling failure could be the reason behind the crash, railway officials said it is not yet clear if Coromandel Express entered the loop line and hit the stationary goods train or it first derailed and then hit the parked train after entering the loop line.
While Coromandel Express was at a speed of 128 kmph, Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express was running at a speed of 116 kmph. The report has been submitted to the Railway Board, sources said.
The collision was so hard that coaches were lifted high into the air throwing several passengers out of their compartments before smashing onto the ground.
Seventeen coaches of the Coromandel Express and SMVT-Howrah Super Fast Express derailed, leading to one of the worst railway accidents in the country in the last 15 years.
Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw reached the spot on Saturday morning to access the situation and announced a high-level inquiry.
The absence of anti-collision system Kavach
On Saturday, railways spokesperson Amitabh Sharma informed reporters that the anti-collision technology Kavach was not available on the route of the crash.
Kavach, an anti-collision technology, alerts when a loco pilot jumps a signal, which is the leading cause of train collisions. The system can alert the loco pilot, take control of the brakes and bring the train to a halt automatically when it notices another train on the same line within a prescribed distance.
Kavach was announced in the 2022 Union Railway Budget as part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative. A total of 2000 km of rail network was planned to be brought under this technology.
Technical error, says expert
Sudhanshu Mani, the former general manager of the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai, and the man who led the team that made the first Vande Bharat train, prima facie ruled out any error on the part of the two loco pilots involved in the tragedy and said the primary reason for the mass casualty is the first derailment and the unfortunate timing of the second passenger train, which came from the other direction at a very high speed.
Mani said if it were just the first train derailing, the coaches would not have capsized and so many casualties would not have been reported.
“Although the reason for the derailment of the first train cannot be a matter of conjecture, as of now, I do not see any evidence of a SPAD case, meaning the driver overriding signals. It was going on the correct path as the data logger shows that the signal was green,” Mani said.
Overcrowded Coromandel Express
Soon after the accident, Twitter was flooded with old images and videos of the Coromandel Express chocked with passengers. Many expose the extent of overcrowding where passengers can be seen standing with no space to move.
Being the holiday season, sleeper coaches are generally filled with non-reserved passengers, mostly migrant workers from West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha.
One user complained their experience with the train was ‘pathetic with no sight of the ticket collector’.
Another complained about bad smell and overwhelming crowd.
Another tagged the Union rail ministry as well as the minister Vaishnaw saying children were getting crushed.
The videos further depicted how the local vendors struggled to sell small items, like candies and dumplings through the crowd.
This tweet captures a passenger reporting to the Rail Seva about passengers sleeping on the floor.
Several passengers have also requested the railway ministry to extend the rail bogeys. In a tweet, a user said, “need some serious help” while in the other one, a user stated, “See the situation of trains is digital India.” Here is a thread.
(With inputs from PTI)
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