Alarmed by two major accidents in less than a year, the Konkan Railway Corporation has expedited implementation of special measures to make journeys safer on its 760 km route.
Fourteen people were killed and over 100 injured when the Mangalore-Mumbai Matsyagandha Express derailed in Raigad district, around 150 km from Mumbai, on June 16. The train derailed after hitting boulders on the tracks.
Among the new safety measures that the KRC is considering are an early-warning system for land-slides, inclinometres and anti-collision devices. The KRC will also use high-strength steel nettings in new areas to prevent land-slides.
High-strength steel nets have helped prevent five major accidents this year alone, a KRC release said.
Inclinometre, the release said, is used in soil or laterite cuttings around the tracks. It can predict a landslide by reading displacement of soil and initiate the early-warning system to send out signals to an approaching train.
Anti-collision devices, or 'Raksha Kavach', receives necessary intelligence and inputs from various sources like the driver, the guard, the station master and gate keepers. It determines in real time a possible collision situation between two ACD fitted objects and sends out a warning.
