Drop in train accidents in last five years

This has been mainly due to safety measures taken by the Indian Railways.

New Delhi: The number of train accidents has decreased in the last five years due to several safety-related initiatives taken by the Indian Railways. According to latest figures of the Ministry of Railways, the number of train accidents has decreased from 118 in 2013-14 to 104 in 2016-17, to 73 in 2017-18 and further to 59 in 2018-19. These, say railway officials, are the lowest ever figures in the history of the Indian Railways. One of the major initiatives taken by the Indian Railways includes adopting the technological upgradation in safety aspects of coaches and wagons by way of introducing the Modified Centre Buffer Couplers, Bogie Mounted Air Brake System, improved suspension design and provision of automatic fire and smoke detection system in coaches.

These modifications are being provided in newly manufactured coaches and wagons on a regular basis. Besides, the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK) has been introduced in 2017-18 for replacement/renewal /upgradation of critical safety assets, with a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore for five years, having annual outlay of Rs 20,000 crore.

Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has said while replying to a query in Lok Sabha: “The conventional ICF design coaches are being replaced with LHB design coaches of Mail/Express trains in a phased manner. Besides a GPS-based Fog Pass device is being provided to loco pilots in fog-affected areas.  The device enables loco pilots to know the exact distance of the approaching landmarks like signals, level crossing gates etc.”  In order to improve safety, modern track structure consisting of Pre-stressed Concrete Sleeper (PSC), 60 KG, 90 or higher Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS) rails, fan shaped layout turnout on PSC sleepers, Steel Channel Sleepers on girder bridges is used while carrying out primary track renewals. Moreover, Ultrasonic Flaw Detection (USFD) testing of rails is being done to detect flaws and timely removal of defective rails.  Each and every consequential train accident on Indian Railways is inquired into either by the Commission of Railways Safety under the Ministry of Civil Aviation or by the Departmental Enquiry Committee to analyse for the identification of the role of operational issues and other factors in train accidents.  For post accident analysis, a Crew Voice & Video Recording System (similar to Black Box provided in airplanes) has been developed for recording of crew communication/interaction in locomotives along with track side view. This system is provided on five locomotives for fields trials.