Device to prevent pile up of coaches in the offing

The Rail Coach Factory (RCF) at Kapurthala recently flagged of East Central Railways’ first crashworthy rake with 29 coaches — after three years of extensive research and development by the Railway Ministry’s Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) at Lucknow.

‘‘Using a host of features, these coaches have been designed to reduce the effect of a collision and provide maximum safety to the passenger,’’ said Yash Pal Gupta, general manager at RCF Kapurthala. ‘‘Apart from these 29 crashworthy coaches, we have dispatched more than 80 coaches with Center Buffer Couplers all over the country. This year, we will roll out 200 coaches with in-built CBCs.’’

The Centre Buffer Coupler is packed with primary and secondary energy absorbers, a buckle initiator and honeycomb energy absorber. ‘‘In the event of a collision, after the energy absorbers have taken most of the impact, the walls of the coaches come together and join. Also, a small section adjacent to the coach’s lavatory is kept weaker to absorb impact during collision,’’ said Gupta. These translate to anti-climbing features as the coaches would not ram together under the force of the collision.

‘‘The CBCs have been designed by RDSO in collaboration with RITES and US-based Transport Technology Centre Inc and were found to be extremely effective during recently conducted collision tests at Alamnagar Railway Station in Uttar Pradesh,’’ a senior official from RDSO’s Carriage Directorate said.

Two types of coaches, GS (General Second Class) and SLR (brake vans) were used for testing. ‘‘A GS coach equipped with a CBC, set to run at 55 kph with the help of an engine, was made to collide with a heavy wagon. The results showed that this coach was crashworthy,’’ the official said. The SLR coaches presented a greater challenge as they are usually the first to bear the impact of a collision. ‘‘Test results showed that on impact, neither did the coaches climb atop each other nor did they derail,’’ the official said.

‘‘The finer points of these tests are now being incorporated into sleeper and AC coaches. Only newly-manufactured coaches would have CBCs as it’s a built-in feature and cannot be integrated later. As of now, a CBC costs around Rs 1.6 lakh but that should come down once mass production begins.’’