{"id":34629,"date":"2018-10-31T12:35:06","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T07:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=34629"},"modified":"2018-10-31T12:35:06","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T07:05:06","slug":"if-safety-is-not-to-be-derailed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/if-safety-is-not-to-be-derailed\/","title":{"rendered":"If safety is not to be derailed:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/columns\/indian-railways-train-derailments-departmentalism-ministry-of-railways-debroy-committee-if-safety-is-not-to-be-derailed-4887638\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If safety is not to be derailed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Derailments on the tracks of Indian Railways have always been a big technical and management challenge.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What makes train travel so unsafe in India?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Derailment<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The number of derailments that took place in 2015 is greater than those in 2014, according to the 2016 report<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Rail fractures<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rail fractures are caused by extreme weather that causes tension on railway tracks.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What makes rail fractures even dangerous is the fact that they are not very apparent as even with ultrasonic detection<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rail fractures occurrence may increase during night time especially during winters when the temperature is low.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Corrosion<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Corrosion is another reason that may lead to accidents. Tracks that are 1-2 year old are more prone to track accidents<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Overcrowded train coaches<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Coaches filled beyond capacity are also a hazard as an overloaded vehicle is severely susceptible to toppling over.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some coaches have been made at the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) and are infamous for piling up on collision.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stainless steel Linke Hoffman Busch (LHB) coaches are more efficient at shock absorption and can reduce incidents of a derailment.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Uttaranchal Express Derailment at Khatauli<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thirteen coaches of the Puri-Haridwar Utkal Express derailed at Khatauli, near Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> due to the civil engineering department staff and officials.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>In which direction should safety measures head?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b><\/b><b> \u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Large projects to relieve the pressure, like the construction of dedicated freight corridors, will take time<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Departmentalism in railways (caused by \u201cthinking in silos\u201d) must be reduced through merger of Group \u2018A\u2019 Services either by<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">merger of all engineering services and civil services of the Indian Railways into one unified service, or<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the merger of all engineering Group \u2018A\u2019 Services into one unified service and all civil Group \u2018A\u2019 Services into another unified service and giving up the Ministry of Railways cum Railway Board system<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These recommendations, if accepted, will remove \u201cprofessionalism\u201d from the top management level of the Indian Railways<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What are the Countermeasures that are to be implemented?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 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.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The national transporter will invest Rs 15,000 crore in the current fiscal (year) to fix the snags on its network.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Railways has 1,22,911 vacancies in safety categories and a shortage of another 17,464 loco running staff.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Additional security<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If safety is not to be derailed:\u00a0 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&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/if-safety-is-not-to-be-derailed\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">If safety is not to be derailed:\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}