New Delhi, Mar 31: The anti-collision device prepared by Northern Railways has been accepted for implementation on all major routes after successful field trials on the Jalandhar-Amritsar section, a senior Northern Railway official said today. Northern zone General Manager R K Singh told reporters here that signaling installations at 448 stations were also being upgraded under SRSF works and real progress would be achieved in 2003-04 as preparatory works were now under way. With regard to sabotage, he said nr had taken the help of state GRPs and railway protection force in track and bridge patrolling along with the railway staff and also pressed sniffer dogs into service. Seized with the problems of busy level crossing gates, he said northern railway has undertaken work on 29 such gates for road over/under bridges on cost sharing basis with the concerned state governments as also launched a publicity drive to educate road users regarding avoiding of gate accidents.

While derailments had been brought down by half from 39 to 22, road user carelessness has increased with gate accidents up from 28 last year to 32 this year, Singh said.


From April 2002 to February 2003, he said there were 59 deaths with gate accidents alone accounting for 48. The remaining 11 deaths occurred in the Shramjeevi Express derailment, which was confirmed as a case of sabotage, he added. Bureau Report