Nalpur derailment: signal failure led locomotive to one track, coaches to another
According to railway sources, a preliminary inquiry conducted by a team of senior officials representing various departments fixed responsibility on the Signal and Telecommunication Department and held the Operating Department blameworthy for the derailment. The team noted that the engine crossed Point No 26(B) into the Main Line while the remaining part of the train got diverted to the Middle Line. Three coaches were derailed.
Investigation revealed that a technician of the Signal and Telecommunication Department took the key of Relay Room from the Station Master of Nalpur at 4.55 a.m. for checking Signal No.10 and returned it at 6.05 am. The Station Master did not issue a failure memo and also no mention was made about the failure of Signal No.10 in the records.
The signal technicians started attending to the failure of Signal No.10 without issuing disconnection notice. However, they recorded in the register that the Relay Room key was required to attend to Signal No. 10 “without hampering track movement.”
The inquiry team concluded that Point No.26 got suddenly reversed under the wheel after the passage of the locomotive taking the remaining portion of the train to another route. “Derailment took place due to malfunctioning of Signal and Telecommunication Gear of Point No.26 under wheel,” the report said, adding that the coupling of the entire rake was intact.
In June 2023, a suspected signal failure in the same Kharagpur Division led to a devastating accident involving the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Superfast Express and two other trains. While signal was set for the main line, the speeding Coromandel Superfast Express entered the loop line where a goods train was stabled. About 290 passengers were killed in the accident and 900 others injured.
A few more train accidents were reported in the last two years where signal failures, especially in the automatic signalling territory, were alleged to be the reason.
Published - November 10, 2024 09:07 pm IST
