Cattle on tracks: 200 trains affected in first 9 days of Oct; 4,000 trains faced delay this year

Cattle run overs affected 200 trains in the first nine days of October and over 4000 trains so far this year official data has shownThe worst affected is the newly minted MumbaiAhmedabad Vande Bharat Express train which was launched on October 1 It suffered three runins with cattle this month causing damage to its noseOfficials said the Railways has barricaded several areas around the tracks which are prone to such incidents but it is difficult to cover long stretches as there are residential areas with homes on one side and farms on the otherThe Railways has also identified stretches which have recorded a high number of such cases and are in the process of fencing them Work has been completed in 40 per cent of these sections an official saidRailways is taking all efforts to reduce cattle run overs CROs We are pinpointing locations where a pattern is found We visit such sites and ascertain the cause of frequent CROs Sometimes there are reasons which can be addressed but other times no direct reason is found Still our teams visit nearby villages and get in touch with the sarpanches We counsel the villagers about the repercussions of CROAlso read Watch video Motorman applies brakes train stops inches away from man lying on tracksSometimes illegal passages are found to have been created across the tracks Sometimes fencing is required to be done over a patch said Amitabh Sharma Executive Director Information and Publicity RailwaysThe identified stretches include sections in the North Central Railways and Northern Railways ndash in the Jhansi Division between Virangana Lakshmibai ndash Gwalior section Prayagraj Division between Pt Deen Dayal UpadhyayPrayagraj section Moradabad Division between Alam Nagar and Shahjehanpur and in the Lucknow Division between Alam Nagar and LucknowNorth Central Railway zone which saw more than 6500 of the 26000 cases of cattle run overs in 202021 is one of the worstaffected Railway zones It covers 3000 km of tracks and hosts parts of the DelhiMumbai and DelhiHowrah corridorsIt includes divisions like Agra Jhansi and Prayagraj and is the gateway for trains from the east to reach the northern parts of IndiaThe Northern Railway zone recorded the highest number of cattle run over cases nearly 6800 across the divisions of Moradabad and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh Firozpur in Punjab Ambala in Haryana and Delhi officials saidThree of the five Vande Bharat trains pass through routes in these two zonesThe Vande Bharat trains were designed to ensure that there are no severe damages to them due to CROs This is why these premium trains have replaceable coneshaped cover in the front portion which is made of fibre reinforced plastic to absorb the impact of a collision with cattle an official saidThis cover costs the Railways around Rs 10000 to 15000 per piece and they are replaced within hours of a collisionThe national transporter has a basket of around 10 spares for these trainsAccording to data provided by the Railways trains affected by cattle run overs rose from 360 in January to 635 in September with more than 22 trains being affected dailyIn the first nine days of October 200 trains have been affected taking the number to 4433 for the year so farCattle run overs can cause serious damage to trains delay them and even cause derailmentThe Railways takes a holistic view to know the cause However we again appeal to cattle owners to be vigilant and not to leave the animals near the tracks for grazing Sharma saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever