Track cut, bolts not fixed: Inquiry nails negligence

TRAIN TRAGEDY Unscheduled repair led to derailment, 4 officials suspended

NEWDELHI: Three top rail officials were on Sunday ordered on leave and another three suspended after a probe report on the Kalinga Utkal Express crash blamed staff’s negligence for the derailment that killed at least 20 people and injured 90.

Fourteen coaches of the express train, which was on way to Haridwar from Puri, went off the tracks on Saturday close to Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, with carriages slamming into one another and crashing into a house close by.

“The derailment happened because the track on the right side had been cut by a hexa blade that the permanent way inspectors (PWIs) were using while doing maintenance work,” said a preliminary report that was submitted to the railway board on Sunday.

The findings again shine light on the poor upkeep of the creaking British-era infrastructure that is struggling to keep up with the load of more trains.

Nearly 53% of the 586 train accidents in the last five years were due to derailments, official data says. The report, a copy of which is with HT, said the staff carried out the “unscheduled repair”. Some fish plates and nuts/bolts at the track joints had not been fixed and the gap widened after five coaches passed by at a speed of more than 100km per hour, it said.

Fish plates are metal or wooden strips that hold the rails together. “As time for maintenance works has been shrinking, unscheduled track repairs – or tasks being done without official permission – have become a routine affair,” a ministry official said.