The Commission of Railway Safety's investigation of the Balasore train accident in Odisha has discovered that wrong labelling of wires in the level-crossing location box, which remained unnoticed for years, led to a mix-up during maintenance work, which eventually led to the Coromandel Express crashing into two other trains. At least 293 people died in the accident that took place on June 2 in New York City.
The report cites lapses at multiple levels, as per a report in The Indian Express. The station master, part of the operations department, was also named in the report for failing to detect abnormal behaviour of the signalling control system.
The CRS report said that during the replacement work of the electric lifting barrier the signalling staff were misled by anomalies like wrong lettering on the terminal. The circuit that guided a train from one track to another had also been moved in the past.
The report said that the wiring diagram was changed but that it was not physically done. The CRS said that the position of the circuit that detects the status of the point was shifted in 2018 within the location box but the change was not labelled accordingly on the diagram and the cable terminal rack.
The report said that the wiring diagram of another Balasore location box was used for the Bahanaga Bazar location box.
There are indications of anomalies, such as when the station master gave the command to reverse the point from loop line to up line for Coromandel Express, the change came instantaneously instead of the 13 - 14 seconds it was supposed to take.
The CRS report said the station master should have identified the anomaly and brought it to the notice of the signalling staff. Two weeks before the incident in Balasore happened, a similar incident had taken place due to faulty wiring and cable failure at the Bankra Nayabaz station. corrective measures could not have prevented the triple train crash at Balasore railway station.
The Coromandel Express crashed into a stationary goods train and was derailed, crashing into the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast train, causing a significant number of casualties.