Inadequate training of loco pilots and station masters, and the absence of critical safety equipment such as walkie-talkies may have led to the collision of two trains in West Bengal’s Darjeeling district that killed 10 persons last month, said a preliminary investigation, according to The Hindu.

On June 17, a goods train collided with the Sealdah-bound Kanchanjunga Express near the New Jalpaiguri railway station. The chairman of the Railway Board, Jaya Varma Sinha, had said after the accident that the cause of the collision prima facie appeared to be human error on the part of the driver of the goods train.

In the provisional investigation report, Chief Commissioner of Railway Safety Janak Kumar Garg has said that the collision “occurred due to lapses at multiple levels in managing the train operations under automatic signal failures”, reported The Indian Express.

Garg said that besides the Kanchanjunga Express and the goods train, five more trains had entered the section before the accident when the signals turned defective.

He noted that the Kanchanjunga Express was following norms by moving at a speed of 15 kilometres per hour and stopping for one minute at every defective signal. However, the other trains, including the goods train involved in the accident, did not follow the procedure.

“Different speeds were followed while passing the defective signals and thereby taking different time,” said the report, according to The Indian Express.

It added: “The absence of proper authority and that too without adequate information, created misinterpretation and misunderstanding about the speed to be followed.”

Garg said that due to these failures, such an incident was an “accident-in-waiting” and finally occurred on June 17, reported The Hindu.

The report also mentioned that the loco pilot and train manager were communicating using mobile phones as walkie-talkie sets were not available.

The chief commissioner of railway safety noted that there have been 275 failures in the auto section of Katihar Division since its commissioning in January 2023 till June 20, 2024.

“The large number of signalling failures in the automatic section is defeating the very purpose of mobility enhancement and causing safety concerns also,” he said.

The report also pointed out that there were 208 “signal passed at danger” cases across the railway network between April 1, 2019, and March 31, 2024. A signal passed at danger, or SPAD case, is recorded when a train passes a stop signal while not being allowed to do so.

Twelve such incidents had resulted in collisions, the report said.

In his recommendations, Garg said that the introduction of new automatic signalling routes should be in consonance with the provision of Kavach.

The Kavach sounds an alert when a loco pilot jumps a railway signal, a leading cause of train collisions. It automatically activates the train braking system if the driver fails to control the train as per the speed restrictions.

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