The Hindu : Rail safety not on track

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 22, 2002

National

National

Rail safety not on track

By Vinay Kumar

NEW DELHI DEC. 21. Within three months of the Rajdhani Express derailment near Gaya in Bihar that killed 130 persons and which was blamed on sabotage, yet another train disaster has occurred in Andhra Pradesh, underlining again the need for greater railway safety on the tracks.

If preliminary reports emanating from the accident site in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh where the Hyderabad-Bangalore Express derailed are to be believed, it throws open a number of possibilities of what could have gone wrong with the track.

Though the statutory formality of instituting an inquiry by the Commissioner of Railway Safety (South Central Railway Zone) has been met with, the fate of such inquiries and their reports are widely known — they have time and again failed to stir the Railways to ensure the utmost safety.

Initial reports quoted the General Manager of the South Central Railway as saying that the rail line was found broken at the site of the derailment. Knowledgeable sources in the Rail Bhavan here said that the pattern of the derailment of the bogies indicated a defect in the rail line but the reason could only be speculated.

One of the reasons could be a fragile joint in the rail line which could have given way due to thermal stress. Another possibility is the failure to adjust the gap between the two rails again to carry out "stress relieving".

A broken track could also indicate a fracture in the rails which was officially the reason behind the train accident at Khanna in 1998. Ultimately, it led to a change in the metallurgic composition of the rails which are being manufactured by the Bhilai Steel Plant of the Steel Authority of India Limited. Two critical compositions — hydrogen and carbon — had to be fine-tuned again to ensure that the rails did not fracture.

Barely two days ago, a goods train had derailed on the Katna-Bina section of the Central Railway and prima facie it was found to be a failure of the "welding'' of the rail line. The loaded wagons had capsized, apparently when the weld joint gave way. In December 2000, at Sarai Banjara in Ambala Division, a passenger train had rammed a derailed goods train, killing about 40 persons. The cause was indicated to be rail fracture.

In their bid to keep the record clean, Railway officials had cited "sabotage'' as the reason for the September 9 derailment of the Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express at Rafiganj without even waiting for the preliminary inquiry report of the Commissioner of Railway Safety who functions under the Civil Aviation Ministry .

As many as 284 persons have died in 227 train accidents this year till November 20. While the Railways have suffered a damage of Rs. 20.65 crores in these accidents, the Ministry has paid Rs. 1.99 crores as compensation. Of the 227 train accidents, 132 were blamed on failure of railway staff and sabotage was cited as reason in 14 accidents. A non-lapsable Special Railway Safety Fund of Rs. 17,000 crores has been created for renewal of over-aged assets and for safety enhancement works.

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