Bangalore Division of the Indian Railways has started installing train protection system in their WAP series engines. The system will also be installed in all series of train engines soon.
The Bangalore Division of the South Western Railway Zone on Thursday evening conducted the first trial for the Kavach train protection system on freight train engines.
The trial was held at 6:15 p.m. between Champion and Marikuppam railway stations.
A railway official said that the installation of the Kavach technology will bring additional safety to the passengers but first they want to ensure its proper functioning by conducting the trial on goods trains.
He added, “The train protection system is the most needed technology for expanding the railways’ operations and services. It has the ability to decrease the speed of two trains if they align on the same track and prevent them from collisiding.”
Another railway official said that the Kavach technology not only protects the trains from collision, but can also signal the ground railway traffic control room about any sort of obstacle on the tracks.
The Kavach technology was developed in collaboration between three Indian equipment manufacturing companies and the Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO). Kavach has been adopted as the National Automatic Train Protection (ATP) System for Indian Railways.
R. Koppal, a professor at R.V. College of Engineering explained that in the Kavach System, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are installed in locomotives and on railway tracks at a distance of every kilometre. These tags enable the prompt detection of any possible collision by sending an alert to the railway traffic control room in case a locomotive pilot jumps a Signal Passed at Danger (SPAD). The Railway Kavach System can also take control of the locomotive to apply brakes to prevent a collision.
He added that anti-collision system is now a part of the engineering syllabus and will generate more innovative solutions in the near future. The Indian Railways has applied the RFID technology very well and this technology could even be used in manned railway crossings where over and under bridges are difficult to construct.
