The Hindu Business Line : Use signalling to improve rail capacity: Experts

SAFETY TECH: The Minister of State for Railways, Mr. R. Velu, at the `2nd International Railway Signalling and Telecom Exhibtion' in the Capital on Friday. — Ramesh Sharma

New Delhi , Oct. 6

Railway experts on Friday stressed on the need to use signalling and telecommunications technology to enhance rail line capacity and safety. Using technology to improve capacity would work out relatively cheaper as against laying extra lines.

The Minister of State for Railways, Mr R. Velu, called for developing global technology to eliminate signal failures that cause rail accidents during heavy fog. "There is a need for anti-fog technology for running trains during intensive fog. What signal system could be deployed and what could be the model should be decided by the Railways at the global level," he said while speaking at an international seminar on `Cost-effective solutions for line capacity enhancement'.

Techniques

"Signalling and telecommunications techniques... can generate considerate line capacity with moderate investments and if monitored and executed properly, these projects will have a relatively short gestation period of three-four years," Mr Ramesh Chandra, Member (Electrical), Railway Board, said. The signalling techniques include centralised operation of points and signals coupled with tokenless block working, continuous mobile train radio communication, intermediate block signalling and continuous track circuiting with automatic signalling in heavily congested routes.

The Railways has already commissioned automatic block signalling with one km signal spacing over 1,497 route km and work is in progress in over 2,000 route km, Mr V Shankar, Additional Member, Railway Board, said.

In some heavily worked sections, this system generates a line capacity of 126 trains each way as compared to a line capacity of 90 trains each way achievable with intermediate block signalling, he said.

"By spending around Rs 1,000 crore on intermediate block signalling systems, line capacity can be increased enough to ensure cost recovery in six months," said Mr Sudhir Kumar, Officer on Special Duty to the Railway Minister.