‘There was an automatic signal failure’: Indian Railways on West Bengal train collision
Railway employee unions criticised the Railway Board for initially blaming the driver of a goods train for the accident, which killed 10 persons.
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Officials from the Indian Railways on Tuesday said that an automatic signal failure had occurred prior to the collision of two trains in West Bengal’s Darjeeling district a day earlier, but clarified that the cause of the accident could be determined only after an inquiry, reported The Indian Express.
On Monday, a goods train collided with the Sealdah-bound Kanchanjunga Express near the New Jalpaiguri railway station, killing 10 persons, including a six-year-old girl who died on Tuesday.
The chairman of the Railway Board, Jaya Varma Sinha, had said on Monday that the cause of the accident prima facie appeared to be human error on the part of the driver of the goods train. “The first indications suggest that this is a case of signal disregard,” said Sinha.
On Tuesday, Janak Kumar Garg, chief commissioner of railway safety in the Northeast Frontier Railway, launched a statutory inquiry into the accident. “There was definitely an automatic signal failure, but in such situations the drivers have to follow a set protocol,” The Indian Express quoted Garg as saying.
He added that the investigation would look into why the goods train was running at a high speed. “We have initiated an inquiry which will be done at the ADRM [Additional Divisional Railway Manager] office. The actual cause...
