Did the repair of a boom barrier at a level crossing near the Bahanaga Bazar railway station at Balasore in Odisha lead to the horrific crash of the superfast Coromandel Express, bound to Chennai from Howrah, after colliding with a stationary goods train on the loop line?
The level crossing gates and barriers are all inter-linked with the electronic interconnected signalling system which controls the trains’ movement automatically to allow the speedier trains to move through the main lines at smaller stations. Senior Railway officials, wishing to remain anonymous, disclosed that the repair of the boom barrier could have led to a break in the circuit connecting the relays and network, which in turn, could have led to a glitch of the signal turning ‘green’ to allow the Coromandel Express to speed through even as the unit had shifted the train to the adjacent loop line where the goods train was parked.
“There are multiple levels of checks and re-checks, but somehow it had escaped everyone’s notice due the work pressure and there were no alerts too. The poor loco pilot has no means to control the train into the loop line as the signalling system will shift the train line and would have been horrified to see the goods train in front,” they said.
