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Following three train derailments on Thursday in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal chaired a high-level meeting on safety in train operations with Railway Board officials, reported ANI. In the meeting, Unmanned Level Crossings and derailments due to defects in tracks were identified as major causes leading to accidents.
Among other issues, Piyush Goyal directed the Railway Board to ensure that Unmanned level crossings are eliminated expeditiously in a year’s time. He also told the board to install anti-fog LED lights in locomotives so that operations can run unhindered during winters.
The three train derailments are the latest in a string of such incidents which saw the exit of Suresh Prabhu as railway minister in the Cabinet reshuffle last Sunday. The first train derailment took place at 6:25 am when seven coaches of the Jabalpur-bound Shaktipunj Express derailed near the Obra Dam station in UP’s Sonbhadra district. Within a few hours, the Ranchi-Delhi Rajdhani Express derailed near Minto bridge in the national capital at around 11:45 am, leaving at least one person injured. This was followed by another derailment of a goods train in Maharashtra’s Khandala close to 3:55 pm.
Meanwhile, an accident was averted after people spotted a fracture in a track between Farrukhabad and Fatehgarh in Uttar Pradesh, minutes before the Kalindi Express was scheduled to pass the place. These mishaps, ironically, occurred on a day Piyush Goyal, the new railway minister, chaired a high-level meeting with Railway Board officials to discuss ways for ensuring safe operation of trains. The recent spate of derailments has raised concerns over the safety of railway operations despite large-scale overhaul of the infrastructure of the public sector transporter in the last couple of years.
Speaking to the media, Railway Ministry officials said that today’s derailments did not result in any major damage or casualties as all the trains were travelling at slow speed. Railway spokesperson Anil Saxena said the authorities have upped their efforts to stop such incidents. “In these cases also, our officials took immediate measures to make sure that the passengers do not suffer. We cleared the tracks quickly and the minister has issued instructions to officials to probe the matter,” he said.
On August 20, 14 coaches of the high-speed Kalinga-Utkal Puri Haridwar Express had derailed in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district, killing at least 23 people and leaving scores injured. The train was on its way to Haridwar from Puri.
Three days later, nine coaches of the Delhi-bound Kaifiyat Express had derailed in the Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh after it collided with a dumper, which had strayed on to the tracks, leaving around 100 passengers injured.
(with inputs from PTI)
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