Balasore Tragedy: Flaws In Interlocking System Had Been Flagged By Operations Head Of South Western Zone Even In February This Year

Seeking immediate course correction in the present interlocking method, a senior railway official had highlighted the serious flaws in the interlocking system after a derailment incident in February this year.

In a letter to General Manager of South Western Railway, Principal Chief Operations Manager Hari Shankar Verma on 8 February, 2023, had drawn the attention of the authorities about an unusual incident in the section in which the train was given point connection for a wrong route while the train was supposed to move on a different line.

Loco pilot of Sampark Kranti Express stopped the train in between Shivani and Ramagini in Birur-Chikjajur section after observing the fault in the interlocking system and managed to prevent a major train accident.

It was a very unusual incident where the point was set to the down main line (wrong line) while the train was supposed to pass through the up main line, PCOM of the Southern Western zone pointed out.

However, due to the alertness of the loco driver, the train was stopped entering the wrong line and a major disaster of head-on collision with a goods train was avoided, Verma said in his letter.

The said incident must be viewed seriously and immediate corrective actions taken to avoid such a case in future, he said in his letter.

Earlier, Commissioner Railway Safety S K Pathak in his report on the derailment of Malda-New Delhi Express at Harchandpur station of Raebareli-Lucknow section in October 10, 2018, had also pointed out the flaws in the system and recommended course correction.

Necessary changes in data logger software should be done to log such point failures in data logger reports.

He had recommended that it should be ensured that there is no tampering in the signalling circuit either in the relay room or in location boxes.

There is strong apprehension of tampering in the data logger system in Balasore which caused a major train tragedy killing nearly 300 lives of passengers.