Odisha train accident: When 'fail-safe' Failed

The train accident in Balasore claimed at least 275 lives and left nearly 900 injured (PTI Photo)

It is Day 3 after the first-of-its-kind three-train accident in the country left more than 288 people dead and over 1,000 injured, sending shockwaves across India.

The Balasore accident is the worst train collision in the history of the Indian Railways and the second worst railway accident after the 1982 Baghmati River tragedy in Bihar in which 750 passengers were killed when the train plunged into the river.

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What led to the accident? 

Several theories are doing the round. It is tough to put a hand on the cause of the disaster as it involved four pairs of tracks (2 main lines, 2 loop lines) and 3/4 trains — two of them superfast travelling at the speed of 128 /126 kmph, as per railway board press conference, and 1/2 stationery goods trains on loop lines — that collided within minutes (an internal railways report puts the time of collisions from 6.52-6.55 pm).

The root cause 

It is less than 48 hours since the disaster struck but the root cause has been identified, the culprits isolated and soon, exemplary punishment will be meted out.

Here is what Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on June 4:

"The commissioner of railway safety has investigated the matter and let the investigation report come. But we have identified the cause of the incident and the people responsible for it... It happened due to a change in electronic interlocking”.

According to the minister, the triple collision has a singular cause the “change in electronic interlocking”.

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What is interlocking?

According to the Indian Railways, “Interlocking is an arrangement of signals, points, and other appliances, operated from a panel or lever frame, so inter-connected by either by mechanical, electrical or electronic locking to ensure that their operation must take place in the proper sequence to ensure safety."

From the time I started playing on tracks in the 1960s and began working with the railways in the 1980s to this day, signalling has come a long way — from un-interlocked, mechanical, and electro-mechanical interlocking to now electronic interlocking.

Electronic interlocking 

Electronic interlocking is revolutionary when compared to electro-mechanical or conventional panel Interlocking. It has hugely improved operations safety.

Electronic interlocking, formerly solid-state interlocking, is microprocessor-based equipment to read the yard and panel inputs; process them in a “fail-safe manner” as per the selection table and generates the required output. This system is a substantial improvement on the conventional relay interlocking system (PI & RRI).

Vaishnaw’s statement means that the failure of this fail-safe mechanism caused the accident.

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Who is responsible? 

A purported signed handwritten report of junior railway officials circulating on social media may offer some clues.

The purported report lays out the scenario leading up to the horrific collision. A goods train was stationed on the loop line. The Coromandel Express was originally set to go on the main line but landed on the loop line as the signal (read electronic circuit) was changed from the main line to the loop line and collided with the goods train. Within minutes, the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast arrived and collided.

So, someone changed the electronic interlocking, an advanced technology responsible for superior safety globally and on the railways' system where it is in place.

My take 

Instead of jumping to a conclusion, I will wait for the report of the Chief Commissioner of Railway Safety. Let CCRS take time but come out with a credible reason for the accident, with suggestions to improve safety.

If the Indian Railways has to truly become a safe system for trains running at 200-250 kmph, it must immediately change its signalling and communications systems.

(Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.)