NEW DELHI: The Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) has recommended the railways to ensure that the standard practices are followed for carrying out signalling-modification work.
It has also said that before taking up modification of the existing signalling circuits, functional tests of the existing circuits under alteration should be carried out to ensure that actual circuits are in accordance with the completion drawings.The CRS investigation into the Bahanaga train tragedy in Odisha has pointed out lapses at multiple levels including field and supervisory staff in the signalling and telecommunication wing of the railways for the deadly accident.It has also pointed at human error for the accident.The safety commissioner, in its report, has recommended a series of corrective steps to eliminate such mishaps in future.
It has advised railways to launch a drive to update the completion signalling wiring diagrams, other documents and lettering of signalling circuits at site.
It has said that an officer should be present at spot for carrying out any such changes in the signalling circuits.The CRS has also recommended deployment of a separate team for checking and testing of modified signalling circuits and functions before restoration or reconnection of the work.
A competency certificate should be issued after a rigourous practical training for carrying out signalling modification works.
Both the execution and checking and testing of signalling-modification works should be done by staff in possession of this competency certificate, the commissioner said.The report also said that in the event of a condition wherein pick up of both normal and reverse indication relays is detected for a point, all signal movement over that point should be prevented.
In case of Electronic Interlocking (EI), this should be registered as a fault condition and the system should shut automatically, it said.It has recommended that provision should be made for separate logging of physical relays in the station and data logger and that point detection circuits should be carried in a separate cable for each point or crossover without any intermediate termination.On the role of the station master, the report said the officer should be made aware of possible faulty conditions of the EI system that could be detected through indication on the panel.As a long-term measure, the report has suggested that signalling functions and gears should be directly connected to EI through open fibre control eliminating intermediate relays.