Two months before the devastating train accident in Odisha that claimed the lives of 288 passengers and left over 900 others injured, the Railway Board had flagged the issue of signalling staff resorting to short-cut methods and warned top Railway officials of the alarming situation.
Referring to five incidents where trains entered the wrong path due to short-cut methods adopted by the signalling staff, the Railway Board in a letter to General Managers of Zonal Railways expressed “serious concern” that despite repeated instructions the ground situation was not improving and “signalling staff are continuing to adopt short-cut methods for clearing signals without checking correspondence from site and without proper exchange of disconnection/reconnection memo, with operating staff.”
