Goods trains involved in iron ore transportation are posing threat of accidents in the siding slated for this purpose at the railway station here, since all operations take place without signal. Though all sidings have been built by the railways almost five years ago, no signal has been installed as of now to ensure smooth manoeuvring of the trains. Since the required signals for the safe movement of trains are not in place, all locomotives drivers rely upon manual help and old ticket system is still followed here.
While inspecting the site, divisional operation manager (coach) PK Mohanti expressed concern that such kind of temporary arrangements were quite unsafe and time consuming too. He said, in the report submitted to divisional manager, he had clearly mentioned about this.
Mohanti said, during interaction with locomotive drivers almost all of them unanimously said that Jagadalpur station was one of the potential business centres in terms of profit-making stations, but safety measures could not be ignored just to rake in money.
The drivers have said that ticketing system was manually used when the signals fail, but this was merely a temporary arrangement. They said every line should have been equipped with proper signalling. Compromising with the safety was a main issue, but without signals it takes 30 to 40 minutes more relatively.
Mohanti said there were total eight lines at the station out of which only five signals were in place. Goods trains run on three lines. One of the three lines is 834 metre long and the rest are 350 metre long. All of these lines were rendered without signals for years.
DRM Anil Kumar said if need be all the signals would be installed. "We didn't have information regarding need of signals on such lines," he added.