Kanchanjunga Express accident: Injured assistant loco pilot may shed light on cause behind crash
Times of India | 18 June 2024
SILIGURI/KOLKATA: Nine passengers died and 41 were injured when a fast-moving goods train rear-ended the Kolkata-bound Kanchenjunga Express near Siliguri in north Bengal on Monday morning. Six of the nine who lost their lives were in the fourth-last bogie, a general compartment. The other three dead were the loco pilot of the goods train; the guard of the passenger train; and a Railway Mail Service official.A co-pilot of the goods train is in hospital.
The toll would have been a lot higher, had the guard's compartment and two parcel vans at the rear of the express not absorbed most of the impact. Among the dead were loco pilot Anil Kumar, Kanchenjunga Express guard Ashish Dey, state excise inspector Kaleb Subba, railway employee Shankar Mohan Das, and two others, Subhajit Mali and Beauty Begum. All six were from Bengal. The identities of three others are not yet established.
The loco pilot of the goods train had disregarded a signal, said Railway Board chairman & CEO Jaya Varma Sinha. Sources on the ground, however, said the automatic signalling system on the stretch had been malfunctioning for some time and "paper signals" were being used, instead.
Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who reached the spot, promised an investigation by the Commission of Railway Safety.
Monday's accident happened at 8.55am between Rangapani and Chattar Hat stations, 11km from New Jalpaiguri (NJP). The train - one of several used by tourists to travel to the Hills - had left NJP. Passengers said the train was moving dead slow when the goods train slammed into it. Four bogies of Kanchenjunga Express - two parcel vans and two passenger coaches - apart from the guard's cabin, were derailed. Five containers from the goods train spilled over to the adjacent tracks.
The tragedy was eerily similar to the train accident that happened almost exactly a year ago - on June 2, 2023 - near Balasore, where a speeding Coromandel Express had dashed into a stationary goods train, killing nearly 300. The derailed coaches had come in the way of the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express, turning into a three-train pileup.
PM Narendra Modi spoke to railway officials. The PMO first announced compensation of Rs 2 lakh to the families of each casualty but Vaishnaw later hiked it to Rs 10 lakh for deaths, Rs 2.5 lakh for serious injuries and Rs 50,000 for minor injuries.
Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee accused the railways of only wanting to increase fares but not caring about increasing passenger safety. "The railways have become totally parentless. Though the ministry is there, the old glory is missing. Only beautification is being done, but they do not care about passenger amenities. They are only keen on hiking fares," she claimed. "You will only see them talk big. They also do not take care of railway officers, technical, safety and security personnel. I am with railway employees and officers," she added.
The casualty would have been several times higher but for the presence of the guard's cabin and two parcel wagons at the rear end of Kanchenjunga Express. Though a general compartment before the parcel van was badly hit, the presence of these bogies helped contain the death toll, sources said.