A 10-member CBI team visited the Balasore train accident site and began its probe into the triple train crash. (PTI Photo)
As the CBI begins probe into the Odisha train accident, another angle related to the cause of the incident has come to light. It is being said that the signalling technician, instead of using system laid down by the Railways, “manually completed” the interlocking work of the tracks, “bypassing certain nodes in a manner that the safety system would not recognise anything was amiss”. Bypasses The Local Switch Device
According to a report in Indian Express, the Coromandel Express crashed on Balasore tracks most likely because of “tampering of the location box” near the Bahanaga Bazar railway station.
The report mentioned that a ‘location box’, typically placed along tracks, holds a junction of connections to the point motor (the movable piece of rail that physically guides a train to its designated track when there are two divergent tracks), the signalling lights, the track-occupancy detectors, and virtually every critical piece that makes the ‘interlocking’ work seamlessly.
Interlocking is a crucial safety mechanism and ensures trains move without any conflict with each other, preventing accidents, the IE report stated.
According to the Express report, in the ‘fail-safe’ logic built into Railway’s interlocking system, the main line on which the Coromandel Express was to pass, could not have got a “green” signal — a line clear signal — if the boom barrier of the level crossing was not down.
By looping the location box, the technician achieved an “all clear” signal for the Coromandel Express, overriding the fail-safe logic manually. In other words, the technician manually “completed” the circuit, bypassing certain nodes in a manner that the system would not recognise anything was amiss, the report stated.
“This would have gone undetected but for one thing. The point, 17A,” the report quoted a senior official who is in the know of things. This manual act did not relay to the system that while the “all clear” signal was achieved, the point remained directed towards the loop line, IE stated.
When asked, a Railway spokesperson said the matter was under investigation. “CRS (Commissioner of Railway Safety) as well as CBI probes have been ordered. The matter is under investigation, so we would not like to comment on anything,” a Railway spokesperson was quoted when IE questioned him of the “manual fix”.
The officials said that this helped them bypass a cumbersome “due process” of disconnecting an interlocking system that is also time consuming — pointing to a possible explanation why technicians on the ground “tampered” with the location box.
The report stated that the “due process” requires signalling technicians to first furnish a “disconnection memo” to the station master, who would then authorise switching off the interlocking system.
This would mean switching to manual mode: the signal would have to be flagged manually, and for that the point would have to be set and locked manually. For longer duration maintenance jobs, the station master would effect a “traffic block” when no train operation is allowed for a while, the report stated.
The Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) on Monday recorded the statements of injured engine driver Gunanidhi Mohanty and his assistant Hajari Behera, who are undergoing treatment at AIIMS Bhubaneswar, officials said.
Both were rescued from the Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express that derailed near Bahanaga Bazar Station. “Both the drivers are stable. While Mohanty was taken out of the ICU on Monday, Behera is awaiting a head surgery,” South Eastern Railway (SER) Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) Aditya Choudhury was quoted by PTI.
Cold Emergency Families of both the drivers have appealed to all for privacy and allow them to recover physically and mentally. They claimed that the drivers could not be blamed for the mishap as they operated the locomotive according to rules.