Balasore accident could have been averted by running checks: Commission of Rail Safety report

An undetected fault in wiring in the location box near Bahanaga Bazaar Railway Station that had not been noticed by Signal and Telecom (S&T) staff in the past five years led to the deadly triple train collision in Odisha. Installed at a distance of two to five kilometres usually, a location box houses cables which control signalling functions, including points, signals and track circuits. 

An undetected fault in wiring in the location box near Bahanaga Bazaar Railway Station that had not been noticed by Signal and Telecom (S&T) staff in the past five years led to the deadly triple train collision in Odisha. Installed at a distance of two to five kilometres usually, a location box houses cables which control signalling functions, including points, signals and track circuits. 

A Commission of Rail Safety (CRS) report accessed by The Hindu pins the fault on S&T Department, which was conducting the repair work on the day of the accident, June 2. Railway officials who are studying the collision said that the accident could have been averted if due procedures had been followed by running checks on the circuit which sets points on rail tracks, connecting the location box with the relay or control room. 

They said that the entire cascade of events, which dates back to lapses being committed by S&T staff since 2018, came to light and attention after it led to a major accident, which is a colossal failure of safety.

On studying notes logged in the data logger device from 3 p.m. to 11.58 p.m. on June 2, the CRS reconstructed the flow of events leading to the accident and after. 

Only at nearly 11.30 p.m., four hours after the accident took place, Senior Section Engineer (Signal Incharge) A.K. Mahanta, who was at the accident site, came to know from the test room that the indication of the point was still showing normal, even when the point machines at site were damaged. This piqued his curiosity and he went to check if there was any wiring mistake at Level Crossing Gate 94, where maintenance work for the Electric Lifting Barrier (ELB) was undertaken between 4.20 p.m. to 4.50 p.m. earlier on the ill-fated day of the accident. 

It was revealed that in circuit diagrams, which were approved in January 2015, terminals F23 and F24 were assigned as spare terminals. Circuit diagrams need to prominently display the reasoning for the connections of cables and are pasted alongside the cables. 

While they were labelled on paper as “spare terminals”, in actuality, the S&T staff, while ‘meggering’ (testing if the circuit is running well) of 30 core cables between central relay or control room, had shifted the 17NWKR circuit, which earlier used to work on terminals F13 to F23 and from F14 to F24. The 17NWKR circuit essentially fixes the point which the train is supposed to take for the mainline.