Sainthia accident

The Monday morning collision between two trains in Eastern railway's Sainthia station is to say the least, the weirdest accident in recent times. The collision took place at a Railway station and that too in clear weather conditions. In such situations, the incoming trains normally approach at a speed of 15-20 kms/hour. Two trains cannot come on the same line at a station as conflicting signals will never come on. This is the basic essence of track circuiting system.Moreover its an eternal principle that signals if at all they fail, come to fail safe mode i.e. to red position. Then what happened? Looks surely a human error of judgement. Error from an experienced pilot and his assistant pilot! looks unlikely again.

All hullabaloo about Chairman, Railway Board's mention that prima facie it appeared to be an error on the part of the driver, is ridiculous. Stating a prima facie cause, cannot be said to be a rash statement. A dead person could well well have committed a serious error of judgement when he was alive. Death in any case absolves a charged official. Why this ruckus then on what the Chairman said!

We Railwaymen have to do a serious introspection on safe train running. Training of pilots have to be given top priority. Refresher courses have to be an integral part of a pilot's sevice career. Not that we don't have these systems. We have to strengthen these. Manpower acquisition in pilots' cadres has to be done on war footing as this consumes a long time. We should concentrate on train running and not on peripheral processes. safe running of trains must be our motto. I am convinced we railwaymen[ and women too] can do it.