NEW DELHI: The Commission of Railway Safety (CRS), after identifying that glitches in the ‘signalling-circuit-alteration’ was the primary cause behind the recent triple train mishap in Odisha’s Balasore, has also made a slew of suggestions to the Railway Board in its report.
The CRS has recommended that the Railways ensure faster response to such a disaster. It has also been advised to launch a drive to complete the signalling wiring diagrams and also to properly adopt the standard practices for carrying out signalling modification work. The Ministry of Railways had tasked the CRS, a statutory unit of the government, with conducting an inquiry into the Balasore train mishaps that happened on June 2.
The CRS report, submitted recently to the ministry, not only stated that the Balasore accidents were due to wrong signalling but also asked the Railways to ensure that the alteration to signalling circuits be carried out in the presence of an officer. It also has recommended that a separate team be deployed for testing the modified signalling circuits.
“It is also learnt that there was a similar incident of mismatch between the intended routes set by signals and the actual route taken by the train on May 16 in 2022 in the Khargapur division of the same South Eastern Railway, on account of wrong wiring and cable fault. Had the corrective measures been taken after this incident, the issue of wrong wiring addressed, the accident at Balasore would not have taken place,” the report stated.
It suggested to the Railway Board that the initial response to such a disaster should be faster. “The Railway Board should review the system of disaster response in the zonal railways, and also coordinate between the zonal railways and various disaster response forces,” the report added. It has also been suggested that provision should be made for separate logging of physical relays in the station-data logger in all zones.