C T Online Desk: New Delhi: The three-train tragedy in Odisha’s Balasore, which left 275 dead and around 1,000 injured, will be investigated by the CBI. The move is significant as sources say only a detailed probe by a top agency can establish criminal tampering, if any, with the point machine or the electronic interlocking system, or if the train changed tracks due to reconfiguration or a signaling error.
The CBI inquiry will answer all queries regarding the accident — the worst in the country in the last two decades.
Along with the CBI inquiry, the probe by the Commissioner, Railway Safety, will also continue and a report is expected in two weeks.
On Sunday, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told national broadcaster Doordarshan that the “root cause” of the accident and the people responsible for it have been identified. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said a day earlier that strictest action will be taken against those found guilty.
Mr Vaishnaw said a change in the configuration of the track may be the cause and that “whoever has done this will be not spared”. Railway experts said the electric point machine is the most important device for railway signaling, necessary for the locking of point switches, and critical for the safety of the trains.
SK Sinha, an Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) alum who founded L2M Rail – a startup committed to boosting safety and sustainability of the Railway Industry – told NDTV that electronic interlocking permits setting up of a route for a train by the station in-charge.
“…Once the route is set and locked, the route cannot be changed until the train completes its movement over the locked route. Signals are green on the routes set and locked for the driver to know that this route is reserved for him and he can go ahead. All events are recorded and available for post-event analysis, and I am sure officials would be studying the data logs to understand what went wrong. The electronic interlocking systems used in Indian Railways are quite robust and conform to the highest level of safety standards and it is unlikely that it would have failed on its own..,” Mr Sinha said.
He added that the most common factor in train derailments is track failure. “Extreme temperatures may cause the track to bend or crack. Weld failures also happen. However, deliberate damage to the tracks caused by anti-social elements has been a major issue for Railways. Tracks are inspected twice a day, manually. However, it is possible and desirable to develop systems to monitor tracks 24/7 and report any abnormalities in real-time,” he said.
Nalinaksh S Vyas, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering at IIT- Kanpur suspects a systems failure.
Mr Vyas, who has headed the Technology Mission for Indian Railways (TMIR), said, “It looks like there was some lack of synchronisation between the electronic and mechanical systems. The way the point works is that it needs to change its position from the main line to loop line or vice versa, and the signaling should happen too simultaneously.
