New system to do away with guard at rear-end of coaches

Indian Railways will do away with the practice of deploying guards at the rear-end of coaches of goods trains as it is installing a new system to ensure all coaches and wagons remain intact when a train is in motion.
The end of train telemetry (EoTT), a device that aims to establish communication between the locomotive driver and the last vehicle of the train, will be fitted in the last coach or wagon of a train.
Railways has sanctioned a project for purchasing 1,000 such systems at an estimated cost of Rs 100 crore.
Specifications of the EoTT equipment have been prepared and tenders will be floated shortly, said Railways Rolling Stock Member Hemant Kumar.

In the new system, a transmitter is fitted on a locomotive and a receiver is fitted at the end of the last vehicle. The transmitter and the last vehicle receiver exchange signals periodically to ensure that the train is running intact.
If there is a break in the communication between the two units, the driver gets a signal that the train has parted and accordingly train has to be stopped to relink the parted wagons, Kumar said.