While focusing on safer coaches to limit fatalities, thorough investigations into accident causes and implementation of corrective measures mustn’t be ignored

Readers would recall that nine passengers died and nearly forty were injured following the derailment of several coaches of Up Bikaner-Guwahati Express on January 13 at Domohani in Mainaguri area of West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district. The derailment caused many of the twelve coaches which derailed, to capsize or climb over another coach. This accident had brought into focus once again, the issue of avoidable fatalities in an accident by switching over to a safer coach design on all faster services such that even if a derailment does occur, in spite of all the precautions and measures, the damage it causes to the affected coaches should be so controlled that it causes minimal casualties.

Indian Railways (IR) principally employs two types of coaches — the old ICF-type and the newer LHB-type. The latter coaches are designed with a coupler, which gets strongly interlocked with the coupler of the adjacent coach, preventing relative sideways and vertical movements of the coaches with respect to each other and, therefore, coaches do not climb or capsize, even if there is a derailment. The ICF-type coaches have no such restraining arrangement, causing them to mount each other or capsize individually when subjected to a thrust in case of a derailment. At the same time, the more recent Vande Bharat Train 18 type coaches are even safer with their semi-permanent type couplers, anti-climbing feature and safer structural designs. I had recommended in this column that ICF-type coaches should be scrapped in a greater haste and to increase the pace of manufacture of LHB- and Train-18- type coaches to replace them. It is possible,thanks to some measures taken by railway production units, particularly Integral Coach Factory since 2016, that IR can be geared to manufacture more than 9000 coaches per year. Once we replace the ICF coaches on faster services in a period of 3 to 4 years, the balance can be relegated to inferior services which can then complete their full useful life without putting lives of passengers to any significant danger of fatalities in case of an accident.

The coach production programme issued by IR has a plan for manufacturing 8429 coaches, falling short of the possible 9000 or more. Although it is not explicitly spelt out, it would help faster replacement of ICF coaches, and therefore, a good step towards improving safety. The pitfall is that this plan envisages 1200 Vande Bharat Train sets and another 52 Cargo-liner and freight EMU coaches whereas the actual achievement would be far less. Even if IR manages to manufacture around 500 against these 1252, it would not be a mean achievement, considering that not one coach of Vande Bharat coach has been built since their first turn-out in October 2018, more than three years back. It is strongly hoped that the shortfall of these 700+plus coaches would be made up through manufacture of more LHB coaches by correcting the course in mid-year. This would ensure that the pace of replacement of ICF coaches is not vitiated too badly.

The safety record of IR has improved in recent years and the number of fatalities is much lower. Greater stress on upkeep of track and allied infrastructure has certainly helped. Due to this focus on trying to have more and more of safer coaches to limit the loss of life in case of a derailment, primacy of thorough investigation into cause of accidents and implementation of corrective measures should not be ignored due to any complacency.

The cause of the accident was reported as a traction motor of the locomotive falling down and causing the locomotives wheels to lift and derail followed by derailment of twelve trailing coaches; such an event is very rare and largely limited to a particular type of motor on electric locomotives. The traction motor is stoutly secured in the bogie and the accident indicated a serious manufacturing defect compounded by improper examination of the fitment of traction motor on the bogie during maintenance. Subsequent examination of data revealed that the culprit seems to be the nose stay lug of this motor and its weld failure has caused ten cases of motor getting detached in recent years whereas its indicated failures during checks number in hundreds.

This key aspect, whether the manufacturing alone or both design and manufacturing need improvement, it is expected, would be a part of the findings of Commissioner of Rail Safety (CRS), who has been entrusted with the inquiry. Some aspects of the follow-up related to the accident in question are somewhat disturbing.

There have been some instructions which give the impression that some officers are trying to jump the gun and attempting to divert the issue. First, in a knee jerk reaction, a top Railway Board executive passed bizarre instructions immediatelyafter the accident, calling out for Loco Pilots to check the condition of traction motor mounting while taking over charge and even during halts in the middle of a train-run, never mind that a routine check by a Loco Pilot can hardly detect a failure of fabrication or weld, and it unnecessarily stresses them out. There may be need to institute a one-time examination of this fitment on all locomotives of this series on a pit by maintenance staff but it is not a defect which is within the purview of a Loco Pilot to assay, particularly when he would be without the benefit of a locomotive standing on an inspection pit. A Loco Pilot, who carries the burden of safety of hundreds of lives when in-charge of a train should be freed from such impractical and disquieting duties.

After that came the news report of the CRS flagging railways’ failure in ensuring mandatory safety inspection of locomotive of the ill-fated train.  He observed that the locomotive in question was running continuously for 18,000 km after the last trip inspection whereas it should have undergone inspection after 4,500 km as per stipulations. It would appear that the trip inspection time interval has been kept at 4500 km as a matter of supreme caution by IR whereas modern locomotives, not today but for more than two decades, are good for working 30 to 40 thousand kilometres without any inspection. In fact, many locomotives on IR easily work for this range of distance without any checks and even if we assume that these passenger locomotives need closer examination, there can never be a case to examine their traction motor mounting every 4500 kilometres. Experts say that overdue schedule running of the locomotives, per se, cannot be the cause of an accident and our operations are such that overdue running is frequently unavoidable. The matter can certainly be taken up for systematic improvements but linking it with the derailment would only tend to obfuscate the real cause of this tragic event.

Even complex problems have simple solutions whereas this seemed to a simple problem with a simple solution; the solution sought, however, seems to be a complex one, with unnecessarily duplicity borne out of unclear intentions.IR has managed well to keep its record largely accident-free and such red herrings by certain executives may cause it to fritter away this advantage. This should not be allowed to happen.

(The writer is a retired General Manager of Indian Railways and anindependent rail consultant. The views expressed are personal.)