After Kanchanjunga train accident, Railways says Kavach on Guwahati-Delhi rail route soon

At least 12 trains- 3 Rajdhani Trains, 5 Mail/Express Trains, 2 Sampark Kranti Trains and 2 Super Fast Trains travel on this route with the shortest route being 1826.47 km

The Ministry of Railways is planning to introduce Kavach, the anti-collision system for trains on the Delhi-Guwahati route very soon, Chairman & CEO Railway Board Jaya Varma Sinha informed today while briefing about the Kanchanjunga Express train accident in West Bengal that happened today at around 8:55 am killing 5 passengers and 3 staffers including the driver and assistant drivers of the goods train and the guard of Kanchanjunga Express.

She said, “As of now KAVACH is planned for the Delhi-Guwahati route. It is not there right now. It is in our next plan to cover over 6,000 km of tracks by next year. Bengal falls within the 3,000 km of tracks set to be protected by Kavach this year. The system will be applied to the Delhi-Howrah route.”

Worth mentioning that, at least 12 trains- 3 Rajdhani Trains, 5 Mail/Express Trains, 2 Sampark Kranti Trains and 2 Super Fast Trains travel on this route with the shortest route being 1826.47 km.

What is KAVACH and how it works?

It is a state-of-the-art electronic system that meets Safety Integrity Level 4 standards. Kavach is meant to provide protection by preventing trains from jumping the signal at Danger (Red) and avoiding collisions.

It activates the train braking system automatically if the driver fails to control the train as per the speed restrictions. In addition, it prevents collisions between two locomotives equipped with a functional Kavach system. ‘Kavach’ is one of the cheapest, Safety Integrity Level 4 (SIL-4) certified technologies, with a probability of error of 1 in 10,000 years.

Currently, Kavach is engaged on over 1,500 km of tracks. The Centre had planned to bring 2,000 km of rail network under Kavach during 2022-23 and aims to cover around 34,000 km of rail network. The Indian Railway system is over 1 lakh kilometres long.

In 2022, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said he had personally tested the safety system.

“Rear-end collision testing is successful. Kavach automatically stopped the locomotive before 380 m of other locomotive at the front,” he said in a post on X then.

https://x.com/SCRailwayIndia/status/1499640390672338949?

How is Indian Railway planning to go ahead?

Indian Railways is rolling out tenders for 10,000 km of Kavach in a bid to prevent accidents due to human error resulting in Signal Passing in danger and over-speeding.

The public transporter has so far tendered 6000 km of Kavach system while deployed on 1465 Route km and 139 locomotives (including Electric Multiple Unit rakes) on South Central Railway. Presently, Kavach contracts have been awarded for Delhi- Mumbai (including Ahmedabad-Vadodara Section) & Delhi- Howrah (including Lucknow—Kanpur Section) corridors approximately 3000 route km covering Eastern Railway, East Central Railway, North Central Railway, Northern Railway, West Central Railway & Western Railway.

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