The Railway Board has launched a safety drive and sought a report within a week after a preliminary investigation into the recent Secunderabad-Shalimar express train derailment attributed the mishap to a technician inadvertently hitting a loose switch of the signalling system.

According to railway sources, the switch, also called a 'latch gear', was loose and it got activated as the technician's lower body hit it inadvertently while the train's engine, set for the mainline, was crossing the interlocking point. The point moved to the middle line direction, leading coaches to go on the middle line and resulting in the derailment.

Dilip Kumar, Executive Director, Information and Publicity, Railway Board, said the board has taken a very serious note of the incident and initiated a safety drive across the railways.

"Safety drives are an integral part of railway mechanisms. We are extremely focused on ensuring the safety and security of passengers. A drive has been launched to further improve the aspect of operation and functioning of the signalling system," he said.

The transporter's signal staff said the Railway Board has asked all the Principal Chief Signal and Telecommunication Engineers (PCSTEs) to run safety drives and fix latch gears and other loose signal and telecommunication parts so that such incidents can be avoided in the future.

According to them, a Whatsapp message has been circulated by the PCSTEs of respective zones to all railway signal and telecommunication staff that said, "A derailment took place in Kharagpur Division, where the interlock relay got operated inadvertently by the Electronic Signal Maintainer while he was checking other failure as his lower back body hit the relay." "PCSTEs have asked the Chief Signal Engineer (CSE) to run a drive to check whether the relays are fixed properly using all screws," a signal maintainer said, requesting anonymity.

"CSE will monitor the drive and a report should be submitted in a week," he added.

Sources said that the preliminary investigation into the derailment has mentioned in its report that a technician visited the relay room to rectify the signal fault and the probe has attributed signal malfunctioning as the cause of the derailment.

The signal maintainer, who requested anonymity, also stated the probe has rightly pointed at signal malfunctioning, as loose latch gear can be considered a fault in the signalling system.

The probe, conducted by five railway officials, also highlighted a serious irregularity in that the station master did not enter the failure of signal number 10 in its register nor did he issue any signal failure memo to the Signal and Telecom Department, the sources said.

On November 9, three coaches of the Secunderabad-Shalimar Superfast Express derailed at Nalpur station near Howrah in West Bengal. The derailment did not cause any casualty because, the sources said, the train's speed was around 30 kmph due to speed restrictions.

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