Railways backs out of human error claim; toll climbs to 10

The death toll from a goods train’s collision with the Sealdah Kanchanjunga Express rose to ten on Tuesday, with a six-year child succumbing to injuries at the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital. The Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) will begin his inquiry into the cause of the accident on Wednesday, even as the Railways seemed to walk back its initial claim that human error was behind the accident by acknowledging that the automatic signalling system was not working along the route. The Kavach train protection system is also yet to be installed for the region’s rail network.

The deceased include three Railway employees — the driver of the goods train initially blamed for the accident, the guard of the Kanchanjunga Express, and a Railway Mail Service employee travelling in the parcel van of the express — as well as seven passengers.

The accident took place between the Rangapani and Chattarhat stations of the Katihar Division of the Northeast Frontier Railway at 8:55 a.m. on Monday (June 17), when a container-carrying goods train travelling at high speed hit the express moving on the same track, resulting in the derailment of four coaches from the rear of the passenger train and five wagons of the goods train.

Despite rising number of accidents, Kavach work still on the slow track

Rail operations restored

Railway services were restored through the down line at the accident site from 7.30 a.m. on Tuesday, with the first passenger train passing through at 10:42 a.m. Operations on the up line had been restored at 5:40 p.m. on Monday evening. Three trains were diverted and two were cancelled on Tuesday due to the accident.

The survivors from the Kanchanjunga Express — which had left Agartala station at 8:25 a.m. on Sunday — finally reached Sealdah station in Kolkata in the early hours of Tuesday morning, with many passengers in a state of trauma and shock from their ordeal. West Bengal Ministers as well as senior Railway officials were present at the station to receive the passengers and make arrangements for them to reach their destinations in the city.

Railway Safety Commissioner begins probe into Kanchanjunga accident; normal traffic restored

‘Automatic signal not working’

Having visited the accident site on Tuesday, Chief Commissioner of Railway Safety Janak Kumar Garg said an inquiry will be made to ascertain the reasons behind the accident. “The automatic signal was not working and so the drivers had to follow certain procedures. The first driver had to follow those procedures and similarly, the driver after that. Now we have to investigate what mistakes were made,” Mr. Garg said.

The CRS inquiry will be held at the office of the Additional Divisional Railway Manager from 10 a.m. on June 19 (Wednesday), according to a notification issued by Northeast Frontier Railway, with the public being asked to bring any information related to the accident before the CRS or write to him.

While the Railways initially said that prima facie, the accident was the result of a human error, it has since come to light that the automatic signalling system along the route where the accident occurred was not functional since Monday morning.

Hence, manual memos were issued by the station master of Rangpani station to both the trains — the Kanchanjunga Express at 8:20 a.m., and fifteen minutes later, to the goods train at 8:35 a.m. — permitting them to cross the signal at red. This seems to contradict the claims of Railway authorisities, who had blamed the goods train driver of wrongly crossing the signal at red.

Kavach installation delayed

Questions have also been raised about delays in the installation of Kavach, an indigenously developed automatic train protection system, across the country’s rail network. According to the Railway Ministry, Kavach protection has only been deployed on 1,465 km of rail routes, and 139 locomotives (including Electric Multiple Unit rakes) on the South Central Railway. There is no Kavach automatic train protection for rail networks in West Bengal and northeastern India, Railway officials said.

On June 17, Railway Board Chairperson Jaya Varma Sinha said that Kavach will be completed along the Howrah-Delhi route this year, and will be installed on the Northeast Frontier Railway routes in the next phase.