Railways focuses on supervision of staff at auto signal stretches

NEW DELHI: The Union railway ministry is looking at ways to have better and more intensive supervision of the field staff and loco pilots who are initially deployed on stretches where automatic signaling system have been installed so that they get fully acquainted with the system. Top officials are working on this mechanism after the recent fatal train crash in Darjeeling district of Bengal.
"It was felt that we need to pay special attention to this aspect since such staff need to get fully familiar with the system for better and safer running on trains.This will get priority and loco inspectors will be asked to have better supervision of drivers deployed on such stretches," a ministry official said.
All India Loco Running Staff Associations (AILRSA) have reiterated the need to provide proper training to the loco staff and others to work under the automatic block signalling system. "Last year, the staff association of New Jalpaiguri had written to the DRM of Katihar that they were forced to work in the automatic block signaling system without pre-training," said V Balachandran, central organising secretary of AILRSA.
In fact, the New Jalpaiguri wing of the association had requested the DRM that without proper training and competence certificate no loco running staff should be engaged to work in automatic block signalling system.