Kavach trial: Train stops on its own before red signal

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday reviewed a trial of an Automatic Train Protection System called 'Kavach' between Sawai Madhopur and Indargarh Railway stations in West Central Railway Zone.

Vaishnaw travelled in the engine of a Kavach-fitted train, which, while speeding at 130 kmph, stopped 50 metres before red signal on its own without any manual interference with the braking function by the loco pilot.

According to Railway officials present during the trial, Kavach was tested for seven different emergency situations and it worked as expected in all of them.

A railway official said, "The train was running at 130 kmph and the moment it entered in a section where there was a permanent speed restriction of 120 kmph, the Kavach brought down its speed to 120 and then after crossing it regained the 130 kmph speed."

In another test case, when the train entered a loop line where its speed was supposed to be 30 kmph, the Kavach gradually decreased its speed from 130 kmph to 30 kmph before entering the loop line.

"During the trial, a station master sent a message of some sort of abnormalities in train running and Kavach again automatically applied the brake and stopped the train," the official said.

"At one stage when the driver failed to sound whistle at a level crossing, the safety system automatically activated and applied the whistle," he added.

After the trial, which went on for about half an hour, Vaishnaw said that in another five to six years, the latest version of Kavach will be installed across all rail network in the country.

The Kavach system, also known as an Automatic Train Protection System, has been developed by the Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO), and it can apply brakes automatically in case of an emergency when a train driver fails to act in time.

The Railway Ministry has been working on this project for the last eight years.

Vaishnaw said that work is underway to operationalise Kavach system on the 3,000-km Mumbai-Delhi and Delhi-Kolkata routes and very soon the installation work on another 6,000 km will be started soon.

Vaishnaw added that the Kavach 4.0 was approved by the RDSO on July 17, which will now help in large-scale installation.

According to Vaishnaw, the Kavach 4.0 will be able to tackle all kind of communication challenges in all geographical conditions such as hilly terrain, forest, coastal, and desert areas.

According to the ministry, the first field trials of Kavach on the passenger trains were started in February 2016 and based on the experience and Independent Safety Assessment of the system by a third party, three firms were approved in 2018-19, for supply of Kavach.

"Kavach has so far been deployed on 1,465 Route km and 139 locomotives (including Electric Multiple Unit rakes) on South Central Railway," an official from the Railway Ministry said.