RAILWAYS TO HAVE CRASHWORTHY COACHES
Indian Railways have embarked upon
a project to make the passenger coaches crashworthy. This would
ensure minimum risk to the travelling public even in case of the
worst railway disaster.
Coaches are being
redesigned without any sharp corner in the interior, duly padding
up vulnerable areas. Fifty-one modifications to coach interior
have been adopted to minimize the chances of injury to passengers
from sharp edges, corners or protrusions within the coach. Most
of these modifications have already been adopted for new coaches.
The periodic
overhauling workshops will also adopt these modifications fully
within next six months with the aim of modifying all coaches within
next two years.
In addition, to improve external
crash worthiness of coaches, the coach bodies will be redesigned
so that the coach ends take the full impact of the collisions
and the entire impact will be dissipated in the non-passenger
carrying areas.
Rail India Technical
and Economic Services Limited have been granted administrative
approval to carryout the study and develop crash worthy design
for General Second class and Guard-cum-Luggage-cum-Second class
type coaches through an international expert of repute.
