- Friday, February 28, 2025
While 170 trains pass through Nahanaga Bazar railway station daily, only seven stop there for a minute.
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE RAILWAY station in the eastern Indian state of Odisha near which a deadly triple train accident took place on June 2, resulting in deaths of nearly 300 people and injury to more than 1,200, has been closed for stoppage for any train till the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing the incident, completes its probe, officials said.
Bahanaga Bazar, the station which is located around 170 kilometres from state capital Bhubaneswar, has been sealed by the investigating agency which has seized the log book, said Aditya Kumar Chaudhary, chief public relations officer of South Eastern Railway, Hindustan Times reported. He added that no train would stop at the station till the probe gets over.
“As relay interlocking panel has been sealed prohibiting access of the staff at the station to the most important part of the signalling system, no passenger or goods train would stop at Bahanaga Bazar till further notice,” Choudhary was quoted as saying by the news outlet.
The relay interlocking panel in small stations such as Bahanaga Bazar has illuminated indications for signals, points, track circuits, crank handles, LC gate, sidings, and others as per their geographical position.
While 170 trains pass through Bahanaga Bazar railway station daily, only seven stop there for a minute. Labourers from nearby villages catch passenger trains from the railway station where less than 10 personnel are employed.
While the tracks at the accident site were repaired on war footing, several trains have still been cancelled on the route as minor repair work is still underway to ensure that the tracks are in order.
The accident happened around 7.30 pm on Friday when a speeding Coromandel Express, operating between Shalimar in West Bengal and Chennai in Tamil Nadu, rammed into a stationary goods train on the loop line and got derailed. Some of the derailed coaches then hit another passenger train which was heading towards Kolkata in West Bengal on the adjacent track, resulting in a huge pile-up.
Prime minister Narendra Modi paid a visit to the accident site on June 3, along with railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and the chief ministers of Odisha and neighbouring West Bengal — Naveen Patnaik and Mamata Banerjee, respectively.
