 On 2nd June last week, we had one of the biggest train accidents ever in India. It's the 4th largest in terms of human toll. With three trains being involved, 275 people have already died according to the reports and about 1,000 or more are in hospital, some of them in critical condition. The three-day train accident involved the Shalimar Coromandel Express, Bangaluru, Haura Superfast Express and a good train. How did this train accident happen? The three-train accident took place near Balasore and involved a train coming from Haura, a train coming from Bangalore and involved a stationery goods train. So these three trains, because of whatever may be the reason which we'll go into later, whatever may be the reason the three-train accidents derailed and of course caused the large number of deaths that we have seen. These are some of the pictures that we have of the disaster. You can see the two trains which have derailed, the number of bogies which are lying on the ground. The people of Bahanaga town and its railway staff rushed to the spot and provided whatever help they could before support could be rushed to help the injured passengers collect the dead. Let's have a look at how this accident really took place. On one side we have the Coromandel Express which is coming in what is called the upline. This is the main line. Then we have the second main line. We have the Haura Superfast Express which is coming from Bangalore. So this is going towards Chennai. That one is coming towards Haura. So these are the two trains coming from opposite sides. Now this train should have continued on what is called the upline here. This is where it should have continued. Instead, due to whatever may be the reasons which we'll investigate a little later, this train got diverted into what was what is a loop line on which there was a stationary good strain. This is what then caused the first accident in which the Coromandel express crashes into the good strain. The second accident that takes place is when the Haura Superfast Express which was crossing at the same time on what is called the downline going towards Haura, it crashes into either the derailed bogies of the Coromandel Shalimar Express or the derailing bogies hit the last bogies of the Haura Superfast Express. So the rear, the last section of the train as you can see here then get affected, get derailed and this is what leads to both trains having derailed bogies and the large number of deaths which took place. The both trains were travelling at speed because they had clear signals and there was no reason for them therefore to reduce speed. The real issue that comes up is how is it that the train, the Coromandel express, travelling around 130 kilometers was diverted instead of continuing on the main line got diverted to the loop line and this is where the question arises what led to the accident. So the question that has been raised how did the Coromandel express get diverted to the loop line where there was a stationary good strain and the argument is that the signalling, the signalling system was the problem that it showed that green line on the main line, green light on the main line but it diverted the train onto the loop line. This can only happen if there is a technical fault somewhere in the system and that is the only reason why such a thing, this such an accident can happen because at that speed that local operator has absolutely no chance to avoid such an accident is travelling 130 kilometers, nearly 130 kilometer speed. So the distances at which this takes place are so short that there is no chance of being able to break or avoid it by the time he is on the loop line he has been diverted on the loop line it's already too late and that is why the cascading effect of this accident takes place. If we look at the Indian Railway system it is the fourth largest in the world in terms of passenger traffic it is the second largest only after China. So this is a train railway system which has 66 odd thousand kilometers of railway track. A large part of the system of course caters to passenger traffic but also to freight traffic. It's an important freight system for India just as it is a major transport system for the people. When trains have to change tracks as we were seeing earlier, there is a set of physical devices on the tracks and there is also a signalling system which move the physical system of the tracks. So as you can see these are the tracks and these are the elements which allow the system to operate by changing which track the train will go from which track. So this is essentially the system which allows movements of trains from one track to another particularly when two tracks meet and it has to decide which track it will go on to. The decision for such movement of tracks or the levers and the basic elements of the tracks which have to operate are done by what is called a control system. Here we have an old-fashioned relay based system which is what a lot of the signals stations may still have but probably most of it has been replaced by more advanced systems today. These relay systems essentially allow the control to be done in such a way that a movement of one track to another meaning diverting a train from one track to another is done in such a way that there is no risk of either the lights being red and the track being something else. It decides which track the train is going to move to and it also has to see that everything is consistent with the movement of the elements of the system which switches one train from one track to another. This is the controlling of the physical devices on the tracks which is done by this control system. It has failed proof features, it has alarms, it will interlock in a way by which it will not allow. Once the track has been set it will not allow it to be moved to without certain steps being taken. This is something that we all know and this is something which is familiar in Indian railways for quite some time. Very few trains nowadays are ever done by manual switching. It is all done with automatic switching and elements of this switching system are such that it should not allow accidents to happen. All the man levers are controlled by the signaling system or the control system and this today instead of being relay based is also solid state quite often and some of them are even microprocessor based on what is called computer control. You can have systems like this which have monitors showing what the railway trains, the lane lines are, where the train is going. Now these were also there earlier. It is not that this is something new but yes these systems are more compact, they have more fail proof features and importantly they allow you visually to see what is happening. According to the reports the interlocking and signaling system seemed to have functioned properly yet the position of the track elements that decides which section of the track the train will travel was obviously not matching what the signal signaling system indicated to the driver. That means while the signaling system said that the down line for the Coromandel express was green, that is the track it was supposed to follow. The point of the track which decides where the finally the train will go pointed to the loop line of the main line giving the engine driver no inkling that it was going to be diverted onto the stationary goods train line which is called the loop line. It would be diverted to the loop line. So how did the interlocking system fail and yet did not provide the engine driver with a warning? What kind of mechanical fault in the system could lead to such a situation? Now here is the new spin coming into the story that this was either a human failure due to faulty maintenance or a more sinister act by interested parties. Now of course these are not being stated openly but we seem to get hints of this from the way the press or certain parts of the media are spinning the story. From a failure of the railways we can now start a witch hunt of who done it then search for scapegoat. The fact is that no maintenance can lead to such a fault without either a signalling failure or a failure of procedures when dealing with such equipment. It is not possible for a failure of this nature to occur without warning either the driver or the operating staff in the station that such a possibility exists and therefore prompt precipitated action needs to be taken. It is supposed to be a foolproof system and there is no way that such a system can fail in in what we have the way we have seen by intent it would really require a lot of intent so to say for to be able to do this which is not something which you would expect to happen. The possibilities are simply that human failures did take place not in the way it is being argued but simply when maintenance was done either proper procedures were not taken or the basic checking of the system after such maintenance wasn't done. A report of the controller and audit auditor general has identified a number of problems in the Indian railways. One of the key problems it has identified apart from tracks being cracked physical problems with the tracks is that a large number of faults in the control system, in the signalling system has taken place due to whatever reasons and that has led to accidents. This is something which has come a number of times before also because every year we get the CAG reports which identify what are the faults in the railway system. If we look at the what the report says it's a report of derailment in Indian railways. This is what auditor general looks at the cause of the derailment in Indian railways of course when it audits this it also looks at the money aspects of it. If we look at what this report says it talks about the number of accidents 275 of which took place due to mistakes of the operating department. Out of this incorrect setting of points and other mistakes in shunting operations accounted for 84 percent. Now we are hearing reports again which seem to indicate that this cannot happen it can only be somebody who's done it on purpose. This is what the CAG says that incorrect setting of points is a major part of the accidents that have taken place 275 out of 275 operating department errors 84 percent was due to incorrect setting of points and other mistakes. So this is not something which is unusual it happens why does it happen CAG is saying because there are no systems or proper checks and the amount of time that people should set should really take in order to do a proper maintenance is not there and it also identifies that the department does not seem to have enough money and we'll see that later that why there is not enough money in for the railways to spend on protection of the system. One of the major reasons of not having properly trained people or people who are under pressure of having worked too much is we have more than three lack vacancies in the railways. Now that's a very large number of vacancies yes Indian railways is the largest organization in the country in terms of number of people working for it but the point is we have on one hand three lack vacancies it also means the railways are not spending enough money internal resources are not being spent either in terms of training people terms of recruiting people and taking care to see your operating resources are properly maintained in fact the railways supposed to have 20 000 crores which were supposed to be in what is called a rastrial rail sanraksh course of the railways instead of this 20 000 crores from the operating budget of the railways 15 775 crore was not put into the budget into this that means out of the 20 000 crores which was planned 15 775 crore or 78 percent is a shortfall if the primary objective of this scheme was to reduce the risks of accidents in the railways it's obviously it has failed primarily it has failed because it's been grossly underfunded instead of 20 000 crores we've only put in 15 000 we have not put in 15 5 775 crores now that is that it means that you really put in 4 000 and odd crores instead of 20 000 crores not even 25 percent of the budget now this was supposed to handle critical systems in the railways which is the tracks on which in which there are a number of problems that we have and also the interlocking and control system which in this particular case was responsible for the accident so why has the Indian railways not been putting in what amounts to really an insignificant amount into its budget in as a part of its what shall we call security budget meaning it's what makes Indian railways safe why is this not put into actual practice when this has been already identified as something Indian railways needs to do the reason for that is if we go to what are the schemes that Indian railways is now implementing we'll see that there are two schemes in which a lot of stake has been put in by the government of India one of it is the Bande Bharat scheme 75 new trains fast trains are being introduced 75 fast trains each of them costing 115 crores each and a total amount of money that is being spent on that is roughly about 8 000 crores of course this is only the cost of the train itself it is not the cost of what needs to be done for the tracks if you want to have fast trains you need to look at the tracks and the control system the interlocking signal system and your operating and maintenance staff so you are spending money on the trains the other bigger project much bigger project which has been there for some time is of course the bill bullet train project which is the one which connects Ahmedabad to Mumbai now that's a much more ambitious and a much more expensive project costing nearly 1 like 8 000 crores of course the costs in all these projects as you know goes up so this connects from Ahmedabad to Thane but essentially it called Bandra Kurla complex controls come comes really to Mumbai now this is a small part of Indian railways but the cost for that is very high because it's a completely new technology it requires new tracks it's a new alignment in the railways that has been has to be created and obviously bullet train is something if we take the rest of the Indian railways is out of proportion is really a vanity project if we compare what the rest of the railway system has to do so if we don't have enough budget so what should be the priority of the Indian state it should be to have safe running of the existing infrastructure put money into the existing infrastructure and if you want to run Bande Bharat trades that's okay but the necessary infrastructure needs to be strengthened see if we look at the railway Rakshakosh which is the safety budget for Indian railways for which 20 000 crores was to be spent yes that is the most important money that the railways needs to spend and if it doesn't spend that to spend money on other vanity projects makes no sense because ultimately what matters is a safety of the passengers and of course of the railway staff and that is at risk if we don't handle if we don't maintain the existing infrastructure and bring it up to what should be international standards