From next month, the Indian Railways will conduct trials for a new technology that will automatically detect and prevent fire in non-air-conditioned coaches. For past several years, the Railways has been focussing on such technology for only AC coaches. Unlike the controlled environment of the AC coaches, the chances of false alarms are thought to be high in case of non-AC coaches. Similarly, detection in such coaches is also a challenge. “The challenge is to differentiate between actual fire and smoke coming in from outside or some errant passenger smoking or lighting a match,” said a senior Railway Board official. An offshoot of an Italian technology, which is being modified by the research arm of the Railways — Research Design and Standards Organisation, Lucknow — the new technology is based on sensing the size of the smoke particles and the length of the time from a source of fire to intelligently differentiate between actual fire and false alarms. Once it is able to detect the fire, the system will be designed to either trigger an alarm or activate mist spray or both, depending on the trial results. The cost is expected to be around Rs 2.5 lakh, almost same as that used in an AC coach. Around two-third of the 60,000-odd passenger coaches in circulation are non-AC. Fire in non-AC coaches — sleeper and general classes — has been cause of concern for the Railways mainly because a majority of the incidents in these coaches have been result of human errors as opposed to short-circuit in AC coaches.
