Visakhapatnam: Passengers express fear over train journey

Visakhapatnam: It is not even five months since the gory train accident occurred at Balasore near Bahanaga Bazar railway station in Odisha.

Even before the memories of the Coromandel Express crashing into a stationary goods train and a couple of its derailed coaches fell into the adjacent tracks, colliding with the upcoming Yeshwantpur-Howrah Express that took away the lives of nearly 300 people and injured over 1,200 were faded, another accident following the tragic collision between two passenger trains in Vizianagaram district resulted in a death toll of 14 persons, while more than 50 passengers sustained injuries.

On October 29, the accident took place when a passenger train travelling from Visakhapatam to Rayagada derailed after colliding with the Visakhapatnam-Palasa passenger train near Kothavalasa railway station between Alamanda and Kantakapalli.

A committee has been constituted to probe into the details behind the accident that occurred in Vizianagaram. After supervising the rescue operation at the incident spot, Divisional Railway Manager of Waltair Saurabh Prasad mentioned that the reasons for the train collision will be confirmed post the report submitted by the committee.

Meanwhile, in its probe, the Commission of Railway Safety (CRS) found multi-level lapses that resulted in the Balasore train crash. The CRS reported that it could have been prevented if corrective measures were considered.

Whether the corrective measures were taken or not, another train crash along the East Coast Railway zone in a short span of time is creating a sense of fear among the passengers. Similar view was expressed by Rajya Sabha member GVL Narasimha Rao, who dashed a letter to Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, expressing safety concerns over train travel along the zone. The MP calls for a systematic and serious review of the train safety in order to avoid recurrence of such accidents in future.

Although restoration and rescue works have been carried out at a frenetic pace and train services resumed after 19 hours of the accident that took place in Vizianagaram district, those who looked forward to a train journey once no longer feel safer in the mode of transportation.

As the accident scenes unfold painful episodes of immense human trauma, many feel that the Ministry of Railways should shed its main focus on the safety aspects in order to facilitate an accident-free train travel. A number of travellers took to ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter) to pour out their travel concerns and suggestions.

With two major accidents happening in a span of less than five months along the same zone, the travellers are keen to know what kind of effective measures have been considered by the railway authorities from the earlier incident to the recent one.