COIMBATORE:The Southern Railway Chief Security Officer will submit the inquiry report on the ‘near collision’ of two trains at Uthukuli station near Tirupur to the General Manager shortly.
Two trains had come on the same tract at the station on Sunday, but a major tragedy was averted, thanks to the timely action taken by the loco pilots of the trains.
The supervisory mechanism, functioning of machines and work of the staff on duty, various processes and records at the station for the last six months were looked into as part of the inquiry. “I cannot disclose anything in the inquiry report till I submit it to the General Manager,” Chief Security Officer G V L Sathya Kumar told Express. “However, I can say that all aspects that created the issue were examined carefully and a detailed inquiry conducted. This report also suggests steps to be taken to avoid similar incidents in future,” he added.
On Sunday morning, when the incident occurred, the automatic signalling system was down due to some technical problem.
A pointsman was asked to clamp the tracks manually to align train movement. However, he clamped the track in the wrong direction, railway officials had said after the incident.
Because of the wrong clamping, two trains - Coimbatore-Chennai Intercity Express (No.12680) leaving Uthukuli and Hyderabad-Trivandrum Sabari Express (No.17230) arriving at the station came on the same track.
Uthukuli Station Master Mukesh Kumar and pointsman Dilip Kumar were suspended and the inquiry initiated.
Salem Divisional Railway Manager Shubhranshu declared a reward for the two loco pilots for being vigilant, thus averting a major tragedy. Each of the trains was carrying around 500 passengers. They were running only at a speed of 6 km per hour, which made it easy for them to be stopped.