Officials from the Tamil Nadu Forest Department and the Palakkad Division of Southern Railway inspected railway lines passing through the Madukkarai forest range in Coimbatore district to chalk out plans to improve safety measures for wild elephants.
The officials also discussed whether additional underpasses would be required to facilitate the easy movement of wild elephants in this region.
The Southern Railway has opened one underpass for elephants and completed the work on a second one on ‘B’ line, which is one of the two railway lines between Ettimadai and Walayar railway stations.
District Forest Officer N. Jayaraj said the joint inspection was to identify additional requirements to ensure safe elephant crossings and to save them from getting knocked down by speeding trains.
“We discussed whether a physical structure could be developed on the sides of the track on ‘B’ line to channel the elephants and other animals towards the two underpasses. Barriers that have to be removed have also been identified,” he said.
Divisional Engineer Anshul Bharti and Additional Divisional Engineer Bibhash Paswan from Palakkad Division joined the Forest Department team along with loco pilots and other officers, for the inspection.
Since poor visibility on the sides of the track at night is one of the impediments for loco pilots, the Railways is working to install solar-powered lights that function at night. This would enable the loco pilots to spot, from a distance, wild animals that come close to the tracks.
The Tamil Nadu Forest Department also arranged a training session for Railway officials and loco pilots on the functioning of the artificial intelligence-based early warning system that detects elephant movement near tracks and generates alerts.
“Around 130 trains pass through the section per day. Loco pilots who operate trains on the route will be given training on the system at the control room. The training will be arranged every week,” said Mr. Jayaraj.
At present alerts from the control of the AI-based early warning system are sent to the mobile phones of the station masters who in turn alert the loco pilots through wireless sets. The Forest Department is expected to have a meeting with the Divisional Railway Manager to discuss the integration of the communication systems so that the alerts can be directly sent to the loco pilots.
Railway officials informed the Forest Department that the Southern Railway would install an Elephant Intrusion Detection System at a cost of ₹15.42 crores. This optical fibre cable-based detection system would be installed along both sides of ‘B’ and ‘A’ lines between Madukkarai station in Tamil Nadu and Kottekkad station in Kerala.
