If safety is not to be derailed: 

If safety is not to be derailed: 

Context

• Derailments on the tracks of Indian Railways have always been a big technical and management challenge.

What makes train travel so unsafe in India?

Derailment

• Derailment seems to be the most common cause of train accidents. Reports of the Railway Ministry for 2015 and 2016 list a conflicting number of derailments in 2014.
• The number of derailments that took place in 2015 is greater than those in 2014, according to the 2016 report

Rail fractures

• Rail fractures are caused by extreme weather that causes tension on railway tracks.
• What makes rail fractures even dangerous is the fact that they are not very apparent as even with ultrasonic detection
• Rail fractures occurrence may increase during night time especially during winters when the temperature is low.

Corrosion

• Corrosion is another reason that may lead to accidents. Tracks that are 1-2 year old are more prone to track accidents

Overcrowded train coaches

• Coaches filled beyond capacity are also a hazard as an overloaded vehicle is severely susceptible to toppling over.
• Some coaches have been made at the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) and are infamous for piling up on collision.
• Stainless steel Linke Hoffman Busch (LHB) coaches are more efficient at shock absorption and can reduce incidents of a derailment.

Uttaranchal Express Derailment at Khatauli

• Thirteen coaches of the Puri-Haridwar Utkal Express derailed at Khatauli, near Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh due to the civil engineering department staff and officials.
• The traffic load on the Indian Railways is ever increasing and the saturation level on its important routes is unduly high, leaving little cushion for maintenance.

In which direction should safety measures head?

•  Large projects to relieve the pressure, like the construction of dedicated freight corridors, will take time

Departmentalism in railways (caused by “thinking in silos”) must be reduced through merger of Group ‘A’ Services either by

• merger of all engineering services and civil services of the Indian Railways into one unified service, or
• the merger of all engineering Group ‘A’ Services into one unified service and all civil Group ‘A’ Services into another unified service and giving up the Ministry of Railways cum Railway Board system
• These recommendations, if accepted, will remove “professionalism” from the top management level of the Indian Railways

What are the Countermeasures that are to be implemented?

• The railway ministry has already initiated measures like inducting modern coaches, creating a safety fund as well as incorporating new technology to not only plug accidents due to derailments, but also to reduce casualties.
• The national transporter will invest Rs 15,000 crore in the current fiscal (year) to fix the snags on its network.
• Railways has 1,22,911 vacancies in safety categories and a shortage of another 17,464 loco running staff.

Additional security

• The Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh, a special safety fund, was created in the 2017-18 budget with a corpus of Rs. 1 lakh crore over a period of five years for financing critical safety-related works.