Indian Railways Thread

[Sachin]

One of the conditions for allowing the shoot is that they cannot show India or Indian Railways in bad light and the assurances will have to be given to us in writing

My salutes to the babu who came up with this idea, and the minister who made the statement. These hollywood folks try to get the maximum advantage out of the Indian system, and then finally lampoon it. Heard that for another old movie Bhowani Junction, IR had done the same. Finally the railway scenes were shot at Pakistan.

are either IRCTC or pvt parties upto the mark? the look and feel of pantry cars I saw in blr central recently did not um give me a sense of deep comfort to put it delicately

I agree with you here. The pantry car in Indian Railways does not give a very clean picture (especially of a place where food is cooked). It seems the store room in a Pantry car, is located right next to the toilets in the coach .

Looks like IRCTC also sub-contracts the food business to others. Because I have seen quality differences between two different areas/divisions. I generally do take railway food at any place, and thank god have not got any health problems (touch wood! ). If SHQ comes along, we also take packed food from home, but again do have some stuff like tea/coffee and soups from the Railways.

Travelled from Mangalore to Bangalore by the night train and there was an armed RPF guard in the coach.

Any day trains plying this route? Heard that it is a scenic route. It was once used by trekkers, who then could walk on the unused metre guage track. The RPF now generally demand that doors are locked. I have seen this happening in other trains as well.

[Sriman]

Any day trains plying this route? Heard that it is a scenic route. It was once used by trekkers, who then could walk on the unused metre guage track. The RPF now generally demand that doors are locked. I have seen this happening in other trains as well.

Yeah, there is a day train. It's a very scenic route, i've done the trek when it was on meter gauge.

[RamaY]

Slums near rail track to be removed
It is a daunting task. It may never be done.

Most of them are railway properties. It can be done unless some politician want to donate govt lands to poor for political gains.

It would be nice if Railways develop and lease these areas for godowns, bio-diesel plantation, solar power generation etc... That will ensure some economic activity.

On a related news in AP alone they were supposed to build ~24lakhs houses (assuming a 4-member family, it covers 10% of state population ). so soon they should be able to rebuild these slums into govt funded colonies with basic amenities.

[RamaY]

My salutes to the babu who came up with this idea, and the minister who made the statement. These hollywood folks try to get the maximum advantage out of the Indian system, and then finally lampoon it. Heard that for another old movie Bhowani Junction, IR had done the same. Finally the railway scenes were shot at Pakistan.

+1008

[Rahul M]

temple of doom was refused permission in India, it was shot in sri lanka.

[Theo_Fidel]

Temple of Doom was particularly nauseous in its portrayal of India. Maybe its is better to let them shoot in India and get as much influence on the image as possible rather than drive them out completely.

To improve IR pantry cars the best thing would be to ban all fried food products. It is the grease smell and fumes that turn these cars into such hell holes. They should stick to steamed, baked or temperature controlled liquid stuff. Idli, poha, lime rice, sandwich, type of stuff does well. It is the attempt to cook even things like chicken curry fresh that causes all the uneven quality problems. I swear when I was a kid on the Niligiri express, I saw a dozen live Chickens in the pantry car for further processing. Pantry car should be mostly refrigerator truck with warming section.

[Rahul M]

I don't think they cook anything these days, other than heating milk for the tea/coffee vendors.
food is uploaded from stations and the pantry just packs it in individual al foil containers.

[Theo_Fidel]

RM,

You have obviously not been to the Vaigai Exp. Pantry car. Shatabdi & newer LHB type trains do cater from stations.

Start rant/

Does anyone find the number of seats offered between major cities a complete disaster. I'm trying to plan my trip to desh and looking for train tickets. There is just 3 daily trains between CST & Chennai. I could not believe it. That is a total of 6000 seats daily between two major cities with about 25 million people combined. THREE. The 3AC seats are essentially full/WL till the middle of November. I'm probably flying but a train trip would be nice. Fortunately I have that option. What do regular people do.

IMO there should be a train leaving for Chennai every 30 minutes from CST/Mumbai.

End rant/

[A Nandy]

Indian Railways has received a commitment of $ 500 million loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Its for development of freight and passenger routes in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, including the critical Golden Quadrilateral corridor that connects Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi. These routes also cover the Indian villages.

http://frontierindia.net/news/indian-ra ... -from-adb/

[Prasad]

RM,

You have obviously not been to the Vaigai Exp. Pantry car. Shatabdi & newer LHB type trains do cater from stations.

Start rant/

Does anyone find the number of seats offered between major cities a complete disaster. I'm trying to plan my trip to desh and looking for train tickets. There is just 3 daily trains between CST & Chennai. I could not believe it. That is a total of 6000 seats daily between two major cities with about 25 million people combined. THREE. The 3AC seats are essentially full/WL till the middle of November. I'm probably flying but a train trip would be nice. Fortunately I have that option. What do regular people do.

IMO there should be a train leaving for Chennai every 30 minutes from CST/Mumbai.

End rant/

Solution is obviously hi-speed rails that can make high speed sprints between cst and chennai to cater to such demand. no other go, similar to europe. Less fortunate people use buses saar

[krishnan]

So that finally took the decision to hike passenger fares

[Vasu]

about time!

Even unions speak the unspeakable: need to hike railway fares

The All India Railwaymen’s Federation (AIRF) and the National Federation of Indian Railwaymen (NFIR), together representing some 14 lakh employees, have proposed raising fares by 20-40 per cent.

“Rationalisation of fares needs to be done. A train journey that costs Rs 5 would cost Rs 60 by bus........Else, we run the risk of facing a situation which Air India is facing,” said AIRF general secretary Shiv Gopal Mishra.

Mishra said fares should be raised 20 per cent in all reserved classes, the fare subsidy provided by the Railways should be reimbursed in the general budget, and a fuel surcharge pegged to the cost of fuel should be introduced.

“Railways are running the serious risk of collapse. If that were to happen, the poorest of the poor would lose the most,” Mishra said.

Concessions are leading to annual losses of Rs 15,000 crore. Passenger fares have not been revised in the past eight rail budgets.

The Railways lost close to Rs 48,000 crore between 2003-04 and 2008-09 on passenger business. Hauling a passenger train over a kilometre costs around Rs 551; the per-km earning is only around Rs 412.

[Aditya_V]

about time!

Even unions speak the unspeakable: need to hike railway fares

The All India Railwaymen’s Federation (AIRF) and the National Federation of Indian Railwaymen (NFIR), together representing some 14 lakh employees, have proposed raising fares by 20-40 per cent.

“Rationalisation of fares needs to be done. A train journey that costs Rs 5 would cost Rs 60 by bus........Else, we run the risk of facing a situation which Air India is facing,” said AIRF general secretary Shiv Gopal Mishra.

Mishra said fares should be raised 20 per cent in all reserved classes, the fare subsidy provided by the Railways should be reimbursed in the general budget, and a fuel surcharge pegged to the cost of fuel should be introduced.

“Railways are running the serious risk of collapse. If that were to happen, the poorest of the poor would lose the most,” Mishra said.

Concessions are leading to annual losses of Rs 15,000 crore. Passenger fares have not been revised in the past eight rail budgets.

The Railways lost close to Rs 48,000 crore between 2003-04 and 2008-09 on passenger business. Hauling a passenger train over a kilometre costs around Rs 551; the per-km earning is only around Rs 412.

So much for Media, Harvard, IIM and treating Laloo as GOD 2- 3 years back. Nobody wants to apologise for the Bullshit that was spread.

In 2007-08, many Indians really belived a world was flat now reality strikes. People like me were ridiculed for stating no fare increase was 1)unsustainable 2) not correct and 3) above all for stating Laloo did not have a magic wand to change the state of Railways overnight and never increasing Railway fares.

[Singha]

laloo increased the allowed load on rakes to get revenue in exchg for wear nd tear. he did nothing special fr passengers.

[Theo_Fidel]

Actually what Laloo did was very effective. His plan was not to raise fares but pack more and more and more people into trains.

- Side middle berth to increase revenue and passengers by 12%.
- More Chair cars such as Garib Rath/Shatabdi to increase passengers from 82 to 140 per coach.
- Increase coaches per train to 24 standard. A few had 28 coaches even.
- Increase use of LHB coaches that are lighter and more importantly have CBC's which allow an extra bay inside with low length increase.
- Lower turn around time of coaches to squeeze more value out of them.

For a massive organization like IR with 36,000 coaches it does not make sense to go gentle on the equipment. If you think the average life of a coach is 10/15 years. Then about 3,500 coaches are burnt out every year just from sitting around. Or about 10 a day. That's why big organizations run their equipment 24/7 till it plain wears out. This is far far more efficient to do this. Ignore wear n' tear.

The real problems began when DIDI came along and said no fare increase and no passenger increase as well.

[SSridhar]

Laloo's reign was one of the most damaging for IR & passengers.

[Singha]

I would say all railway ministers in recent memory have been mediocre and useless. was jaffer sharief or ram bilas paswan any better? all they care for is setting up a coach factory in home state, adding a few new trains for their states and thats it. by some political consensus a run of 6 straight railway ministers was from bihar before Didi came along.

we need a big decision - what is the future - more of the same crap quality coaches and stations or a bus-like fare and free cash flow to build better coaches and stations. they also need to sell of excess land holdings to generate capex funds and develop some of these plots in prime areas in JVs with pvt players in hotels and shopping areas. they need to improve productivity and automation in staff. 1000s of bridges and culverts need replacement if speeds are to go higher. the E and W freight corridors are mere slogans for now. anti collision devices are yet to reach mass deployment.

its upto the nation to set the bar higher.

[Aditya_V]

The real problems began when DIDI came along and said no fare increase and no passenger increase as well.

See the White Paper tabled when DIDI took over in 2009, that was less a month after took over, it exposes all the lies and Myths about Laloo. His no passenger fare increase while costs go up was good populism politics but in the long run the disaster for IR and its users.

Otherwise he did not do much for Freight. Freight colections only increased because the cost of Freight by Truck increased as Diesel prices increased sharply in 2004/05 period, this meant more people opted for Rail freight and put up with other hang ups involved. This also since the economy was on a role since 2003 meant that demand increased significantly.

I had predicted Lalu Matka idea will die since there is no way one can dispose of tonnes of used matkas in each train and station.

IT was just good media marketing of Lalu which created the Hype.

[Gaurav_S]

Train loses track, turns up at wrong station

VIJAYAWADA: Once an atheist from Japan toured India. After returning home, he wrote: "Now, I strongly believe that God exists. Otherwise, it is not humanly possible to see the trains running and criss-crossing all over India." Though it could have been a cruel joke, the Indian Railways has always lived up to the adage.

In a hilarious incident, an express train lost its way and ended up at a wrong destination and the authorities realised the mistake only after the passengers started screaming about the train's "changed" path. Curiously, the train passed through three railway divisions before the gaffe was noticed and top bosses in all the three divisions were now searching for 'scapegoats' at the field level to escape the axe.

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), which runs special trains between pilgrim destinations, planned a train from Tirupati to Varanasi via Bhubaneswar. The special train left Tirupati around 7 pm on Tuesday and reached Vijayawada at 8.30 am on Wednesday. Around 1 pm, the train chugged into Kazipet station in Warangal, even as the bewildered passengers looked on helplessly.

The furious passengers informed the station authorities, who immediately alerted the divisional officers at Secunderabad. The mistake was noticed only after a divisional operations manager in Secunderabad swung into action and asked the authorities at Vijayawada to revert the train to Vijayawada for its onward journey to Bhubaneswar via Vizag section. Since it was a special train, many of the on-duty staffers were not aware of the train schedule either.

While the train was given clearance to chug back to Vijayawada much to the delight of the harried passengers, the top officials of Guntakal, Vijayawada and Secunderabad divisions had three-hour teleconference wherein it was found that a communication gap had led the train on to the wrong route. The authorities at the Guntakal division (under which Tirupati station functions), who handed over the train to Vijayawada division officials at Renigunta station, had wrongly mentioned the destination station code resulting in the chaos.

They mentioned the code of Bilaspur station (BSP) instead of Bhubaneswar (BBS) during the handing over of the train chart, leading the officials at Vijayawada to allow the train to take the Warangal route for the journey to Bilaspur. The train left Gudur station around midnight.

"We have allowed the train to take the Warangal section as it was the original route for Bilaspur. There was no fault on our part," defended a senior official at Vijayawada station.

After realising the major goof-up, the authorities brought the train back to Vijayawada to proceed to Bhubaneswar for its onward journey to Varanasi. "No senior official could not notice the mistake immediately as it was not a scheduled train," said a senior official. In fact, even passengers had no clue about the wrong path as several of them were in deep sleep after the train left Vijayawada.

Warangal station superintendent Jayakumar requisitioned a separate engine to change the direction of the special train after nearly 1,000 passengers rushed to his cabin. "I do not know as to who has allowed the train in Warangal section. But once Vijayawada division cleared the signal for the special train, we allowed it travel back," he said.

"Though the journey was agonizing, we thank our stars that the train did not run into another train though it had taken the wrong route," said a passenger, trying to steal a smile.

Passengers of special train deserve special treatment. So IR decided to throw some suprise...

[csaurabh]

Actually what Laloo did was very effective. His plan was not to raise fares but pack more and more and more people into trains.

- Side middle berth to increase revenue and passengers by 12%.
- More Chair cars such as Garib Rath/Shatabdi to increase passengers from 82 to 140 per coach.
- Increase coaches per train to 24 standard. A few had 28 coaches even.
- Increase use of LHB coaches that are lighter and more importantly have CBC's which allow an extra bay inside with low length increase.
- Lower turn around time of coaches to squeeze more value out of them.

Laloo didnt do anything useful
- side middle berth is a total nightmare if you ever used it
- most passenger trains were named 'superfast' in order to increase fare
- chair cars extremely uncomfortable
- gimmicks like garib rath and some train supposed to carry vegetables from patna to delhi

[Aditya_V]

Train loses track, turns up at wrong station

The authorities at the Guntakal division (under which Tirupati station functions), who handed over the train to Vijayawada division officials at Renigunta station, had wrongly mentioned the destination station code resulting in the chaos.

Passengers of special train deserve special treatment. So IR decided to throw some suprise...

WTF, If Tirupati and Renigunta do indeed follow in 2 seperate Divisions, then someone in IR is smoking something really heavy. Why would Renigunta fall under Vijaywada division?? I can understand Nellore or even Kalahasti falling under Vijaywada division, but putting Renigunta on the Chennai - Mumbai linein Vijaywada division- makes absolutely no sense to me, and then keeping Tirupati in anther division- thats asking for chaos.

[Theo_Fidel]

Laloo didnt do anything useful

Never said what Laloo did was useful or even good for IR & its passengers. He pretty much treated passengers like cattle. If you don't want fare increases you are going to resort to gimmicks like super fast premium, Tatkal premium, packing people into hot sweaty chair cars, etc to raise revenue. There is nothing wrong in this. Private companies do this all the time. The leg space on some of the newer Volvo buses in TN has reduced as they have added yet another row of seats. Any trip in cattle class of airlines in Massaland will have you pining for the spacious IR sleeper coach, yes with side middle berth.

But he kept IR solvent. This is no small miracle. In other words effective.

One must remember that before him the projected shortfall was about Rs20,000 crore per year by 2012. One can carp about accounting tricks or mistreating passengers, etc but we must give him props for at least trying and pushing thru many policies, even if controversial. Esp. on the freight side more money was squeezed out of the states, power companies, shippers, etc. These things all private companies do as well. If Reliance did these things we would applaud them for their world class efficiency. When Laloo does it we turn all bitter and condemnatory.

Not sure why everyone is so negative towards him suddenly. This seems like an SDRE mind set. Everything is negative and our country is going to be destroyed soon. Not true at all, IMHO things are getting better slowly. Having traveled in the late 80's on wooden seats in Sleeper mail trains behind Steam loco's from the 50's in 30 year old coaches I can tell you today's A/C Sleeper is quite luxurious by comparison. There will come a time when we will be rich enough to afford better train systems. But with our present pitiful investment level, this the best we are going to get. The last report had a cost of about Rs 35,000 crore to upgrade all the signalling in India and prevent the rash of collisions we have had recently. To pay for this every single one of the 1 Billion long distance passenger tickets alone will need a surcharge of about Rs 50 for the next 5 or so years.

Passenger traffic quite simply does not pay for itself. Only 20% of IR's revenue is from passenger while 60%+ of its expenditure is in passenger. People talk of fare increases but the truth is fares would have to Triple to let IR just break even. Right now Chennai Mumbai in SL is about Rs400 and 3AC is about Rs 1000. Or about $8 and $22. This is a pitifully low fare by world standards. So don't expect world class service. IR has kept this to a bare minimum with no frills and cheap costs and tickets by keeping low standards across the board. 99% of IR passengers want this and are happy with the cost structure and willing to put up with the inconveniences because of this.

Like I said IR solvency due to Laloo was a minor miracle. We need to get over our political views of him. Loloo operating ratio of 78 in 2007 is quite remarkable. Didi has 'improved' it (not) to 96.

Now DIDI on the other hand is a true disaster according to my relative who work for IR. She never clears a file. Her management style is to not make any decision unless she is in the mood. She will not listened to any advice. She has slowly squandered the time Laloo bought so we could completely overhaul IR by not doing anything at all. She has turned a true surplus of Rs 10,000 crore into a true deficit of Rs 2,500 crore. Projected deficit in 5 years Rs 10,000 crore annually. We will see how wonderful IR is after that sort of deficit for a few years. We will be crying for the wonder years of Laloo by then. IR bankruptcy is looming right now.

[Supratik]

Theo,

You have to consider the 6th pay commission effect. IIRC IR staff is about 1 million.

[csaurabh]

Laloo didnt do anything useful

Never said what Laloo did was useful or even good for IR & its passengers. He pretty much treated passengers like cattle. If you don't want fare increases you are going to resort to gimmicks like super fast premium, Tatkal premium, packing people into hot sweaty chair cars, etc to raise revenue. There is nothing wrong in this. Private companies do this all the time. The leg space on some of the newer Volvo buses in TN has reduced as they have added yet another row of seats. Any trip in cattle class of airlines in Massaland will have you pining for the spacious IR sleeper coach, yes with side middle berth.

But he kept IR solvent. This is no small miracle. In other words effective.

One must remember that before him the projected shortfall was about Rs20,000 crore per year by 2012. One can carp about accounting tricks or mistreating passengers, etc but we must give him props for at least trying and pushing thru many policies, even if controversial. Esp. on the freight side more money was squeezed out of the states, power companies, shippers, etc. These things all private companies do as well. If Reliance did these things we would applaud them for their world class efficiency. When Laloo does it we turn all bitter and condemnatory.

Not sure why everyone is so negative towards him suddenly. This seems like an SDRE mind set. Everything is negative and our country is going to be destroyed soon. Not true at all, IMHO things are getting better slowly. Having traveled in the late 80's on wooden seats in Sleeper mail trains behind Steam loco's from the 50's in 30 year old coaches I can tell you today's A/C Sleeper is quite luxurious by comparison. There will come a time when we will be rich enough to afford better train systems. But with our present pitiful investment level, this the best we are going to get. The last report had a cost of about Rs 35,000 crore to upgrade all the signalling in India and prevent the rash of collisions we have had recently. To pay for this every single one of the 1 Billion long distance passenger tickets alone will need a surcharge of about Rs 50 for the next 5 or so years.

Passenger traffic quite simply does not pay for itself. Only 20% of IR's revenue is from passenger while 60%+ of its expenditure is in passenger. People talk of fare increases but the truth is fares would have to Triple to let IR just break even. Right now Chennai Mumbai in SL is about Rs400 and 3AC is about Rs 1000. Or about $8 and $22. This is a pitifully low fare by world standards. So don't expect world class service. IR has kept this to a bare minimum with no frills and cheap costs and tickets by keeping low standards across the board. 99% of IR passengers want this and are happy with the cost structure and willing to put up with the inconveniences because of this.

Like I said IR solvency due to Laloo was a minor miracle. We need to get over our political views of him. Loloo operating ratio of 78 in 2007 is quite remarkable. Didi has 'improved' it (not) to 96.

Now DIDI on the other hand is a true disaster according to my relative who work for IR. She never clears a file. Her management style is to not make any decision unless she is in the mood. She will not listened to any advice. She has slowly squandered the time Laloo bought so we could completely overhaul IR by not doing anything at all. She has turned a true surplus of Rs 10,000 crore into a true deficit of Rs 2,500 crore. Projected deficit in 5 years Rs 10,000 crore annually. We will see how wonderful IR is after that sort of deficit for a few years. We will be crying for the wonder years of Laloo by then. IR bankruptcy is looming right now.

Simple solution is to increase fares instead of gimmicky nonsense. If he wants to not annoy vote bank, keep general class fares same. Most of them don't buy tickets anyway.
IR is a service with enormous demand ( every train goes packed, and with 200+ waitlisting ). It is a monopoly. How hard can it be to make profit?

[ritesh]

My 2 cent for improving the railway:
1. All the unprofitable routes should be served once a week (strictly).
2. All the Express/ Super Fast type should have minimum of 30 coaches/ rakes.
3. Increase freq of shatabdi/ durontos on profitable routes.
4. Privatise stations (local and long dist).
5. Electrification to be completed in warfooting.
6. Having dedicated corridor for frieght and passenger traffic.

[Singha]

1. do we want a civil war and all railway stations burnt down by angry mobs ?
2. most indic metro stations max out at 25 coaches length and less for smaller ones, fancy old people, ladies in saris and kids using the coaches from ground level..half will break their legs!
3. but first it needs improvements in signaling, safety and replacement of weak bridges (1000s)
4. and who would want to manage the cesspool stations...its not T3 with a suited booted well heeled clients who will follow rules and pay well
5. where is the surplus electricity? we are better off using diesel for now perhaps
6. $$$ lots of $$$ needed

main thing is $$$ - no $$$ => no track repairs, bridge replacements, new signaling gear, next-gen engines or coaches, better stations, no freight corridors...nothing that needs capex can be taken up.

[SBajwa]

Check this idiocy of Indian railways they created a new track from Chandigarh - Sarhind which now effectively has two separate tracks from Delhi to Kashmir (doubling the tracks from Ambala to Amritsar). Then they started a new train on this track from Chandigarh to Amritsar "Duronto Express" meaning that train will not stop anywhere but at Amritsar only leaving Ludhiana Jalandhar aside. With 1200 capacity only 300 people are traveling on this train. If Jalandhar and Ludhiana are added as a stops the train will definitely become popular.


http://post.jagran.com/railway-sufferin ... 1315650436

[chackojoseph]

Somehow MARG reminds me of L&T way back.

MARG to fabricate railway BTFLN Wagons for Braithwaite & Co Ltd

[chaanakya]

Just watching a Breaking news

Passenger train collided with a stationary train (Both EMUs) near Arakonam-Chitteri on chennai-katpadi route. 25-50 Casualty feared, 3 bogies derailed . details awaited.

[saip]

15 killed in Tamil Nadu train collision: Police (Third Lead)

Link

[joshvajohn]

Indian Railways is in poor condition of administration and innovation. There is a growth but it has potential ability new models. the best way is to make the regional railways completely independent and make their own.

[krishnan]

11:14 AM Chennai train crash: Driver jumped signal:

Update on the train accident in Tamil Nadu.

Southern Railway General Manager Deepak Krishnan said the MEMU driver had apparently ignored the signal and speed restrictions. The Arakonam-Katpadi passenger was waiting for the signal. Being an automatic signalling territory, trains move one after another in this section, he said.

"Normally the previous signal would be danger (red). But apparently the MEMU train driver has not adhered to the signal," he said.

[Theo_Fidel]

^^^
The heavy rain & fog probably had something to do with this. It is amazing how many of these accidents occur in bad weather. IR should switch to in-cab signalling but this would require a massive upgrade and will be expensive.

[Aditya_V]

^^^
The heavy rain & fog probably had something to do with this. It is amazing how many of these accidents occur in bad weather. IR should switch to in-cab signalling but this would require a massive upgrade and will be expensive.

Fog no way. There was no rain in Chennai yesterday but could have been at Arakonam, but the weather is too hot for there to be any fog.

[Theo_Fidel]

Well maybe not fog fog but low clouds in this case. Vellore Arakonam area is famous for it due to being at foothills area. Once summer is over Chennai is usually much warmer than Vellore. By Sept/Oct night temperature in Vellore starts dipping into the 60's and is prime condition for fog when it is raining esp. It is always a surprise to people driving from dry blue skies in Chennai esp. early morning runs. You can see them shivering outside CMC vellore completely unprepared for the in-country chill. I've run into fog in that area even in the peak of summer when the air very still. Vellore is technically a hill station for our area at an elevation of about 1000ft and in a valley of the Javadi hills. Arakonam is just on the other side of the Javadi hills and probably the limits of the chill air blowing off the hills.

It seems unlikely that a engineer on the same run for years and familiar with every dip and curve would miss a signal otherwise.

[krishnan]

The engineer knewn he had messed up and jumped to safety

[SBajwa]

not good!!

[chaanakya]

Now it seems that signals were working and Driver of MEMU was talking to friend over Mobile ( as per call records) in recent Arakonam Trained accident which killed 15 people and injured over 70. He ignored signal and had speeded up to 70-85 kmph in a section with limit for 15 kmph.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tam ... 460085.ece

[krishnan]

I suspected it.

[Sachin]

Now it seems that signals were working and Driver of MEMU was talking to friend over Mobile ( as per call records) in recent Arakonam Trained accident which killed 15 people and injured over 70.

.
1. This engine driver should be summarily dismissed from service, because he seems to be a careless chap who can yap on a mobile phone, while on duty.
2. Railways should perhaps bring in a work instruction that drivers should not carry cell phones while on duty (or issue cell phones which cannot be used to call the general public).
3. The number of accidents caused by the use of mobile phones is becoming alarming. I know of two cases in Bangalore alone, where people walking on the railway track talking (or listening to music) on mobile phones got run over by trains. And many more cases of idiots crossing roads etc. talking to on the cell phones.