NEW DELHI: The railways is mulling to unveil enhanced passengers safety by fitting train coaches with automatic door locking mechanism. The move is part of the plan within the Ministry of Railways to give top priority to safety.
Sources said that automatic door locking mechanism will be manned by train guard from his cabin. On the lines of the Metro coaches, the initiative envisages all doors automatically opening when a train arrives at station and close before it departs.
The Railways is planning to unveil the enhanced safety feature first in the Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains, while other trains will get the feature afterwards. “Two Rajdhani and two Shatabdi trains will become operational by April this year with the automatic doior locking system.
This will be part of the pilot project, which will further be expanded,” said a senior official in the Ministry of Railways. The officials estimate that the new feature would cost about Rs 20 lakh per coach, while they added that the trains would not move unless all doors are closed. The officials also said that the loco pilots would also have access to the control system of the automatic doors.