2004-12-14
by Alok Patel
It had gotten unusally cold last night and I had no intention of going to the station at such a time. I'd rather than site comfortably in front of my computer. Destiny (big word) was to take another course though.
20.45 (approx) A loaded BOXN Wagon rake sets out of Itwari hauled by Ajni WAG7 27367 towards Nagpur goods yard. I am told it was planned to send the Tatanagar Passenger rake to Nagpur from Itwari after this rake.
21.00 Rake enters goods yard at Nagpur from the Itwari line. Everything goes on as normal. Points are already set to move the goods rake out of the mainline towards a loop on the left.
21.05 WAG7 27367 enters the loop followed by the fully loaded BOXN wagons behind it. Speed 10 kph approx.
21.07 Suddenly something goes wrong. Three loud noises are heard throughout the eastern side of Nagpur yard. A wagon in the middle had derailed. Driver may have been unaware or emergency brake application may have taken time. Two more bogies were dragged over the point and almost straight ahead onto the mainline. The derailment had stranded the goods mainline AND the line coming into Nagpur from itwari.
21.08 This happens right in front of Goods cabin. Central Control immediately alerted by crew at the Goods Cabin. Everyone knew that an interesting night was coming up. Meanwhile, passengers of the Tatanagar Passenger are waiting on the platform wondering why their train, scheduled to leave Nagpur at 21.00, has not yet arrived.
21.15 A siren at Motibagh is sounded signifying an accident has occurred. A shunter is despatched to get the breakdown accident rake from Ajni. Announcement at Station that Chattisgarh Express is scheduled to arrive shortly at Nagpur station from Bilaspur.
21.30 Some maintenance crew arrives at the scene. Senior staff is at home by this time of the night. They are informed of the incident. They begin dressing up for the weather and prepare to get to the station. Second siren is sounded at this time.
21.35 Paper pushers get busy, doing their bit to destroy the precious forest cover in the country. Reams of paperwork in the offing ;-).
21.40 Not much work is done by this time. The odd time combined with the initial lethargy was the probable cause of this. People begin damage assessment work.
21.45 By now it is surmised that the 3 coal loaded goods wagons (ER 111393, ER 112233 and NR 87601A )jumped the points and decided they wanted to go by the mainline only ;-). Reason was found to be the badly maintained point on the mainline. A search would begin soon, rapidly, and in earnest, for the person who was to be crowned "Scapegoat of the Day". But this was wisely put off till later. Senior staff arrive at the scene.
21.50 The accident rake arrives and is put onto the loop line at the left of the train. I find out and make preparations to come to the scene myself.
22.00 The breakdown army brings out it's weapons of war. Massive Hydraulic Jacks (as compared to trucks;-) ) are brought out. Small gensets are brought out and placed at strategic points on the scene. 500 watt halogen lamps are connected to those and used to light up the scene. Four such gensets are used on either sides. A portable, 10-12 feet tall light tower is also set up. This nifty thing has it's own genset at the bottom which provides electricity to a very powerful incandescent lamp at the top. The entire tower is covered by a fabric of some sort and contraption looks like a tall white pillar with light coming from the top. It provides excellent, glare free diffused lighting very suitable for such work. A fan is also included in the assembly to ensure air circulation for the bulb at the top. The OHE is not shut down this time. There was no need to do so at this point of time. Also, the wagons were not tall enough to cause problems when they'd be lifted up.
22.05 I reach the spot with my friend Vinod. People waiting for Tatanagar Passenger are stranded on the platform with no guarantees when the train will turn up now. More people at the scene now. Work begins at this point. The crew has managed to succesfully uncouple the derailed wagons from the front and rear portions of the train that is still on the tracks. The WAG7 moves the front portion of the train a bit further away.
Meanwhile, equations were being formed all over the place. Some were trying to decide who will win the coveted (not!) Scapegoat.... Award. Someone was saying it would be an S&T (Signalling & telecommunications) guy. Another was of the opinion that someone from the permanent way department would be in the line of fire. Amused grunts told me many people agreed with this.
22.10 The rear portion is attached to another locomotive, a Diesel, and towed away somewhere else too. I now take a good look at the point which was the cause of all this ruckus. Lots of people bending down taking a good look at what was wrong with that point on the mainline. The tongue of the switch, meant to have moved INTO it's stock rail, had given way under the load and slipped UNDER the railhead of the stock rail. The locomotive and the wagons may have crossed this point unharmed because the tongue may have bee allright at the time. This slight reducing of height of the tongue had caused the flange of the right wheel to cross over the tongue into the gap between the stock rail and the thicker portion of the tongue. The momentum of the train and perhaps the pull of the locomotive, had caused this wagon (ER 111393) to drag the other two off the tracks as well. It was just as well that the train was very slow.
The mainline track, at the point where the first and the second bogie were now stranded, was bent out of shape and uprooted. It was rather easily done too as the sleepers were the old iron channel sleepers that simply rested on top of the ballast.
22.30 As they say, the night has just begun. Work begins in earnest. Brute force is tried first. A chain is used to couple the first derailed wagon and the last wagon from the front part of the original train That part was still waiting a couple of feet away with it's WAG7. The aim was to try and drag the wagons back on the track (yeah right!). 3 derailed wagons with wheels stuck in the ballast offer infinitely more rolling resistance than something on the rails would. The WAG7 driver was asked to notch up. That he did and as the train moved ahead, the massive chain snapped immediately and with less drama than a string made out of cotton. Idea abandoned.
A hydraulic jack is brought in and placed under the underframe right beneath the coupler. The aim: uncoupling the first wagon from the second. Since the wagons have CBCs uncoupling them in such situations, when the wagons generally end up at odd angles to each other, is at best difficult and at worst, impossible. These folks were lucky. The wagons had not overturned. The first wagon was then lifted to be able to 'lift' the coupler out from the other one. To understand why this would work, check out the design of a CBC. However, the jack was not able to lift the wagon high enough to release coupler due to the angle. This was causing both wagons to be raised. Senior officials had, by this time, begun their bit to add to the confusion. I recognised a lot of the faces from the 'Panto Incident'. Well, well, well, I thought, fun's about to begin.
22.45 Another crew had also joined the fun from the other end. They had been the ones who had uncoupled the trailing vehicles on the rail and now they were busy uncoupling the last wagon from the middle. Removng of the coupler between the first and the second wagon took a long time. A massive 80 tonne loaded wagon was no childs play. The Hydraulic jacks would lift the wagon inch by inch. Watching the jack push the wagon up, I was almost expending most of my own strength just willing it to go up!
I could see some senior officials consulting on some important issue with each other. Apparently, it was actually frantic talk about how the other guys (Probably SECR) wanted these fellows to give memo and a detailed discussion on why exactly a memo should not be given to them and why they should not give a memo either! I had to agree ;-). Important stuff, don't you think?
23.00 A smart alec underling was 'demanding' from his superior why things were taking so much time! By this time, the jack had been removed from the trailing coupler of the first wagon and was being fitted under the leading coupler of the second one. The soft spoken, unassuming superior was a more patient man and wanted to remove the couplers intact. This senior official was also the one who was around at during the Azad Hind Pantograph incident. The smart alec had a quick and dirty solution, get a gas cutter and show the couplers whos the boss.
23.20 Slow progress. Not much had still happenned. I turned my attention to the wheelset and the bogies. The wheels, ofcourse, were not at all damaged. They seemed to be placed at impossible angles to the bogie itself, however. I was wondering how they'd move the wagons with such damanged bogies. While lifting, the bogies were tied to the underframe of the wagon by thick chains. This would prevent them from dropping out from under the wagon or hanging down and causing more inconvenience. I was surprised at the amount of tolerances these bogies and wheelsets have. Making those must have been really something.
23.35 It was an ordeal lifting the wagon with the Hydraulic Jack in itself. I could almost hear the poor jacks screaming for mercy by now ;-). After what seemed like an eternity, the jack finally managed to lift the wagon up high enough to release the coupling. The destructive, but quick procedure of using a gas cutter on the couplers was beginning to sound appealing to me.
23.40 A TKD WAG5 was brought in from the eastern side to try and drag the last wagon onto the rails again. But for that it had to traverse the very same point that had caused the derailment. As the loco slowly inched in, staff gathered around the spot and tried to check the position of the wheels on the rails. Apparently, things had gotten beyond accepted tolerance levels at the point and it was decided to abandon this idea too. No point in causing another derailment when one's hands were already full.
In the meantime, someone from the press had gotten wind of this incident and reached the spot with his camera and started snapping away. This initially caused a flutter among the staff and senior officials, used to continual bashing in the press, involuntarily shrunk back. I'd gotten there before them! A pity I didn't have a camera. But then I didn't have a press card with me either and didn't want unneccesary hassles.
A train was allowed to move out of the yard on a calling on signal. This turned out to be a BOXN rake with Ajni WAG7 27306. The rake had a lot of BOXN HA wagons. These wagons are taller and have a capacity of 64 tonnes against the usual payload capacity of a BOXN of 56-58 tonnes. That brought the gross weight of the wagon to a stunning 90 tonnes. It had the same CASNUB bogies as on the BOXN, probably with more reinforcements.
23.50 Work now began on rerailing the first wagon. Wooden blocks were brought out by the accident crew. These blocks were carefully maintained by the accident crew. The blocks had metal straps on each end to prevent splintering of the wood under heavy loads such as when kept directly under the flange of a wheel. Those were rather heavy too and it was interesting to see all the myriad shapes and sizes of blocks that were stored by them. A combination of any number of those would easily fit any situation!
00.00 The jack was fitted under the leading end and finally the process of moving the wagon horizontally, and back onto the track began. The first bogie was painstakingly moved onto the rails. I was amused at how easily the bogie would turn when suspended.
Smart Alec, in the meantime, was moving importantly about from one end of the wagon to the other, doing nothing. Perhaps that was his way of warming himself up!
00.30 After lots of effort, the first bogie was finally rerailed. Everyone immediately scrambled to look for the time and everyone was calling out to each other to confirm the time at which this great even took place ;-). I was quite gratified to see the hard work being put into finishing off the work quickly. Ofcourse, the usual bunch of folks trying to order the others was there. But they were, for once, largely sidelined as the crew continued work in which not many could offer a lot of advice.
00.45 The trailing bogie of the first wagon was also rerailed with the aid of the hydraulic jack and wooden blocks and massive amounts of patience. It was quite a contrast seeing a crew member dripping with sweat on a night that was cold enough to make you shiver despite all the warm clothing. Everyone took a five minute breather and then got to work again. A very important part of the toolkit and paraphernalia being carried in the Accident relief van are the ingredients for making tea! Someone was supposed to get them and brew up some tea for the fellows hard at work. No sign of it even after an hour... Perhaps the tea froze up in the cold.
01.00 The first wagon was now pushed away enough to allow for space to work on the second wagon. Well, one does not bring in an electric power to push just one wagon... One uses Man Power! Fifteen or so people from the crew got together to push the 80 tonne wagon a few feet away. Starting TE was just enough to push the wagon for the few feet required. I am sure a WAG9 could better this if nothing else ;-). Wooden wedges were immediately placed between wheel and rail to prevent the wagon from loitering about on it's own.
01.05 As time began to wear on, nerves began to fray. Irritation among crew members began to but work was progressing with reasonable pace. Attention was focussed on the last bogie (NR 87601A) which was easier to rerail as one of it's bogies was still on the track. This was finished off in another 15 minutes and the second crew noe proceeded to begin work on the middle wagon.
01.15 This was to be the most difficult one. Here the wheelsets had to be moved horizontally over another rail and the wheelsets had to be replaced accurately on curved track at the divergence.
01.25 It was around this time that another train was allowed to leave Nagpur yard towards Delhi/Howrah side. A spotlessly clean WAG7 27115 from NKJ moved a BOXN rake out of the yard slowly. It was interesting to see the wide berth that railway staff always gives to an oncoming train. Despite the train being more than 100 metres away and only doing 10 kph, all the staff had moved off the track. Something that laymen still do no seem to understand. Work to rerail the front bogie began at this time.
01.45 The other crew working on the rear bogie finally succeeded in putting that bogie on the rails. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief. Only the front bogie of the wagon remained. After much shouting by the accident crew and more milling around by the 'accident prone' crew, work began on the last rerailing task. The wagon was lifted again with the hydraulic jack and moved into position above the rails, the bogie was then pushed around by hand to move the wheels into the correct position and lowered onto the tracks. A couple of tries later, the bogie was rerailed at 02.03 am and everyone audibly sighed with relief. The wagons were later cleared from the line and taken to Ajni for checks. The entire incident had taken up 5 hours 15 minutes.
I and my friend decided to call it a night and made our way home after having agreed that it wouldn't make sense to sit there till next morning when the will start work on the track!
This was also an example of the horrid maintenance practices in place at Nagpur yard. Ironically, a brand new motorised point was lying next to the accident prone old non motorised point which was due for replacement. A Lackadaisical attitude had caused massive delays in replacement. And this was something railway staff was saying. The relatively small remodelling work at Nagpur station has taken 2 1/2 years and is still going on. Work was originally scheduled to be completed in 1 year. Commuter services have been curtailed on this pretext and cause inconvenience to thousands of people everyday.
A look at the condition of the washable apron on Platform No.2 at Nagpur and one wonders how come no train has derailed here too! With this derailment, things will probably pick up speed. If they don't, I will have another report to write.