Weeks before Odisha accident, Railway Board flagged ‘shortcuts’ by signalling staff

The practices, highlighted in a letter by Railway Board Member (Infrastructure) RN Sunkar on April 3, involved “reconnecting signalling gear without proper testing of points”, “wrong wiring during preparatory works” during maintenance.

Weeks before Odisha accident, Rly Board flagged ‘shortcuts’ by signalling staff

Locals, security personnel and NDRF during the search and rescue operation at the site where Coromandel, Bengaluru-Howrah Express trains derailed. (PTI/File)

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Weeks before the June 3 Odisha train accident which killed 288 people, the Railway Board had in April informed its zones of at least five instances since January of unsafe train operations involving points and crossings due to “shortcuts” by signalling staff.

The practices, highlighted in a letter by Railway Board Member (Infrastructure) RN Sunkar on April 3, involved “reconnecting signalling gear without proper testing of points”, “wrong wiring during preparatory works” during maintenance. These are similar to what is suspected to have caused the Odisha triple-train accident involving the Coromandel Express, the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast and a stationary goods train.

Read | Quick fix for green signal to Coromandel likely cause of Odisha train accident

While probes into the Odisha accident by the CBI and the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) are underway, sources have told The Indian Express that the CRS has been made aware by staff in Odisha that the location box at the level crossing at the station had cables related to the gate, the relay and the point motor, but that the labelling of each was mixed up. 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 and the track-occupancy detectors. These and other systems make the ‘interlocking’, a crucial safety mechanism, work seamlessly.

The five instances took place in a span of January and March in Lucknow, Hosadurga in Karnataka, Ludhiana, Kharkopar in Mumbai, and Bagratawa in Madhya Pradesh.

Titled “Adoption of shortcut methods by staff”, Sunkar’s letter highlighted that signalling maintainers were “continuing to adopt short cut methods for clearing signals without checking correspondence from site and without proper exchange of disconnection/reconnection memo with operating staff”.

“Such practices reflect dilution of manual and codal provisions. Same are potential hazards to safety in train operations and need to be stopped,” Sunkar wrote in the letter addressing all zonal railway general managers.