To be on time, railway drivers told to hit max possible speed

There is good news for tens of thousands of rail passengers who are frequently inconvenienced by late running trains. In a major decision, the Railway Ministry has directed train drivers to hit the top permissible speed to make up for the lost travel time. The punctuality performance of Indian Railways in 2017-18 was worse in comparison to the two financial years before that, with almost 30 per cent of its trains running late.

The decision has been taken after it was found that punctuality of trains suffered because loco drivers were wary of driving at Maximum Permissible Speed (MPS) due to the fear of being caught overspeeding, which is punishable.

In the new time table to be released on August 15, trains having an MPS of 110 kmph will be showed having a normal prescribed speed (booked speed) of 105 kmph and those with 120 kmph MPS will have115 kmph.

The maximum permissible speed of mail and express trains is 110 kmph, but they maintain an average speed of 40 to 50 kmph. Elite class trains such as the Rajdhani and the Shatabdi, having an MPS of 130 kmph, run at an average speed of 80 to 90 kmph. Railway official sources said with 30 per cent trains running late this year, the Railways has now decided to ask drivers to run at the booked speed, but speed up to the MPS when they are running late.

"While we want our trains to run at their maximum limit, drivers have the tendency to run them much slower so as to not get penalised for overspeeding, which is going over the MPS. Now, with the limit set at a lower speed, drivers can normally drive at 105 kmph and also have the cushion to push the speed upwards to the MPS just enough to gain lost time. The order also means we do not have the pressure of running at MPS all the time," said a train loco pilot of the Rajdhani Express at New Delhi Station.

"The new directive replaces an order issued in 2000 in which the Ministry had said that trains are supposed to run at maximum permissible speed (MPS) even when they are on time, subject to speed restrictions, but they rarely do so," said the official source.

Indian Railways is undergoing a phase where upgrading, modernisation and renewal of track was going on in a big way. Due to this, there has been a sharp decline in the number of accidents in the recent past.

The punctuality of mail and express trains during April 2017-March 2018 was 71.39 per cent as compared to 76.69 per cent in the corresponding period of 2016-2017, which is a deterioration of 5.30 per cent. In 2015-2016, 77.44 per cent trains ran on time.

The massive maintenance work had directly affected punctuality performance. In 2016-2017, railways put in over 15 lakh maintenance blocks in 2,687 locations resulting in delays in both mail and express trains. The number of blocks rose to 18 lakh in 2017-2018 with maintenance work being carried out at 4,426 locations.