Red signals for the Railways

Balasore tragedy highlights poor safety protocols

India’s worst train crash in decades highlights the problem of misplaced priorities in the Indian Railways, which gives precedence to investment in projects such as high-speed Vande Bharat trains and bullet trains over basic safety and maintenance. Though a detailed report is awaited, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the root cause of the three-train crash in Balasore, Odisha, was a flaw in the electronic interlocking system. This caused the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express, going to Chennai, to run into a goods train on the same track and derail. Another passenger train, the Yesvantpur-Howrah Superfast, headed in the opposite direction, then crashed into the derailed coaches, causing 275 deaths and injuring over 900. Mr Vaishnaw stated the people responsible for the faulty signalling had been identified and the focus was on getting things back on track.

This amounts to bolting the wagon door too late. Flaws in signalling systems are not new; they have been flagged several times before. In February this year, for instance, Railway officials had pointed to serious flaws in the signalling systems in another zone. A head-on collision between the Sampark Kranti Express and a goods train near Mysuru was averted thanks to the alertness of the loco pilot, who discovered that the passenger train was erroneously set to go down the wrong line. In 2018, loco pilots on southern routes exposed three serial crises with signal interlocking systems in one week. All involved express trains diverted down the wrong lines — including one that was cleared for a signal crossing when it was still open for vehicular traffic. Only the alertness of the loco pilots stopped the trains just in time. Such salvation by serendipity is not always possible for trains travelling at top speeds, as the tragedy at Balasore showed.

Since then questions have been raised as to why the Railways’ “Kavach” automatic train protection was not installed on this route. This indigenously developed early warning system not only alerts the loco pilot to an impending collision but can also automatically engage the brakes when it senses another train on the same line within a specified distance. Trials of this system have so far progressed at a snail’s pace, having been tested on two sections on the South Central Railway system. Instead of focusing on critical safety and on boosting maintenance, another serious weakness flagged in the past by the Comptroller & Auditor General, the Indian government has been flagging off indigenously developed high-speed trains and allocating crores of rupees to a bullet-train project.

The Vande Bharat trains are undoubtedly a feat of local engineering. But the irony is that far from attaining their maximum speed of 180 kmph, their average speed has been 83 kmph, mainly owing to poor track conditions, though the minister said the tracks were being upgraded to accommodate them. Admittedly, too, the number of major accidents has fallen sharply since 2016. But Balasore is a wake-up call. Some 25 million people travel by train every day. Many of them are among India’s poor and lower middle class, unable to afford the ritzy prices of the Vande Bharats, the bullet train when it materialises, or air fares. Vigilance and safety are the very least the Indian Railways should assure them.