Special: No means of escape, alert; Take heed, if you’re a rail traveller

The Bangalore- Nanded Express, which caught fire on?Saturday, caused devastation that could easily have been avoided. Fire extinguishers are kept locked in the generator cabinet, with only railway staff in the know. The lack of smoke detectors, emergency exits and the isolation of the A/C comparment meant those asleep had only the cries of other passengers to alert them.?Planes, buses and now trains — when will the authorities wake up? Shrinivasa M. and Sangeeta Bora report.

Sleeping passengers on board the  AC coach of the Bangalore-Nanded Express that caught fire early Saturday had no warning other than shouts from others travelling with them on the train that they needed to get off as quickly as possible.

The railways may claim that they have smoke detectors and a fire alarm system on board the trains, but clearly neither worked when needed most, resulting in a tragedy that left over two dozen people dead.

"If there was a smoke detector in the coach, many more could have escaped the fire. As it is, people realized something was amiss only when the rest of the passengers began shouting and screaming,"  said a passenger, who himself was woken up by the mayhem and managed to get out of the coach before it was entirely engulfed in flames.

Even when alerted, no one seemed to know where the emergency exit or lights were either and so panic set in even more, according to him. 

“Most passengers had no idea how to get out of the moving train and so became very distraught,” he recounted.

A passenger on a Hyderabad bound train, Vinod LK, points out its difficult to recognise emergency exits even from the outside.

"How do you locate them when you are inside, especially at night? Usually in an accident the  electricity snaps leaving passengers in darkness. Naturally this leads to a stampede. The recent Volvo bus accident showed how important a proper emergency exit is and now this train accident has only emphasized it, “ he added.

Another grouse of passengers is that while the railway manual makes it mandatory for ticket inspectors to work round the clock on trains, they seem to disappear shortly after they start moving.

In fact a passenger travelling without a proper ticket and using the seat reserved for the ticket inspector, was also among the dead in the recent mishap, they note.   

Regretting that the railways have learnt nothing from past accidents, passengers say the A/C coaches are more vulnerable than others to fires on board trains and feel a safety demonstration is a must on all of them. "Although there are fire extinguishers, most passengers don’t know how to use them in an emergency.

The railways should at least have safety manuals on each coach for the information of passengers," said Narasimha Iyyengar, a passenger on his way to Bhuvaneshwar, who also believes there must be an emergency response team on board trains, to come to the rescue of passengers when needed.

“I don't know why the railway staff took such a long time to vacate the coach after  the loco pilot saw the smoke and realized something was amiss," he rued.

No guidelines for railway safety

A railway officer closely involved with the investigation of the fire onboard the Bangalore-Nanded Express admits a lot needs to be corrected to ensure passenger safety on trains.

"Even today liquor is easily carried on trains and passengers smoke inside the coaches. Although carrying inflammable material is banned, there is no check on this. All this has led to frequent fire mishaps on trains in  recent years,” he says, agreeing with the Union  railway minister that new  security guidelines are needed for trains.

Logistics experts, for their part, feel the railway emergency response system is too slow for comfort. Ashwin Mahesh, an expert in urban development and governance, suggests modernisation of the trains to make them more safe and comfortable.

"The coaches are in incredibly bad shape with narrow passages and a negligent emergency policy. I wonder why the coach factory does not  keep pace with  world class standards. It hardly seems interested in this and in the process innocent passengers end up paying the price,” he laments, also wondering why railways cannot be brought under the purview of the  state governments for more effective functioning.

"Centralisation of the services is one of the reasons why Bangalore is the only metropolitan city not to have rail connectivity to the airport. This monopoly needs to end. Excuses regarding funding are not good enough," he adds, lambasting the railways for its failure to get a proper feedback from people on its services.

"The Indian Railways has not done a customer survey in the last 50 years. If they are willing to compare the revenue they collect with that of other countries, they should also be ready to compare the safety records as well. Besides, there is no regulator. 

A March 2013 report on Indian Railways’ safety performance claims the following measures are taken to prevent fires on trains:

1) Intensive publicity campaigns to prevent the travelling public from  carrying inflammable goods are regularly undertaken.

2)  Measures have  been taken to prevent fires due to electrical  short circuits in coaches, which include three levels of protection in  non AC coaches in case of short circuits.

Failure of 1st level fuse  protection will cause fuse at 2nd level and 3rd level to protect the  coach from short circuit.

3) To enhance electrical safety of coaches, only halogen -free, fire  retardant, low smoke e-beam irradiated cable is provided in new coaches.

4) Two separate Fire Safety Audit Teams have been constituted recently  to plan fire safety audits.

5) To improve fire safety on running trains, a pilot project  for provision of a Comprehensive Fire and Smoke Detection System has been taken up in one rake of the Rajdhani Express in the East Coast Railway.  Similar extended field trials of an automatic fire alarm system will be carried out in 20 more rakes.

6) The guard-cum-brake van, AC coaches and pantry cars on all trains have been  provided with portable fire extinguishers.

7) Detailed instructions have been issued to Zonal Railways for observance of safe practices in handling of pantry cars.

8) IR have always endeavoured to enhance fire worthiness of coaches by using more fire retardant furnishing materials such as Compreg Board/PVC for coach flooring, laminated sheets for roof, ceiling wall  and partition panelling, rexene and cushioning material for seats and berths, FRP windows and UIC vestibules etc.

9) Specifications for such furnishing materials have been periodically upgraded to incorporate the fire retardant parameters in line with UIC/other international norms.

All new manufacture of coaches/periodical overhauling of existing coaches is being carried out with fire retardant specifications of the furnishing materials.

10) Improved materials for electrical fittings and fixtures such as MCB, light fittings, terminal boards, connectors, etc., are being used progressively.