Kochi: Passengers in the Thiruvananthapuram railway division are not guaranteed to reach their destinations easily because the bogies get decoupled at frightening frequency.
The Mumbai-bound Netravati Express suffered such a fate when its engine and three coaches decoupled from the rest at Pettah at 9.50 am on Wednesday morning. The engine, an unreserved coach and an AC one moved forward leaving behind the rest of the coaches at the station. The loco pilot knew of it only when the engine reached Kochuveli. The bogies were reconnected and a probe was held before the train resumed its journey.
Sources said that the rake was the one used for incoming journey and that no detachment or attachment of bogies was done during maintenance here. “A preliminary probe suggested a technical issue with the new box-type coupling system,” they said.
The development comes close on the heels of a series of similar incidents in the recent past forcing the divisional authorities to institute a probe by a three-member committee.
“The committee submitted a report to the safety department and the Railway Board ruling out human error, especially maintenance lapse. It termed the incidents highly complicated technical issues,” said a senior railway official.
A total of 13 decoupling incidents were reported since August 25 disrupting schedules. Though box-type couplings are used in all divisions repla-cing traditional screw-type ones, no other division has reported similar cases so regularly.
