Eight years after the Railway Board decided to eliminate all unmanned level crossings in the country, the Southern Railway on Saturday claimed it has become “Unmanned Level Crossing (UMLC) Free Zone”.
Chennai:
Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai divisions of Southern Railway became UMLC free during the first quarter of the current year,” it said in a release.
As on September 1, 2017, there were 311 UMLCs on the Southern Railway system, which were targeted to be eliminated by this September as per Railway Minister Piyush Goyal’s directives, it said.
Accordingly, as on September 30, 2018, Southern Railway has eliminated all the remaining 311 UMLCs. With this, all the Unmanned Level Crossings in the zone have been eliminated thus enhancing safety,” it said.
It recalled that the Railway Board had formulated a policy in 2010 to eliminate all such level crossings “from the system to prevent accidents” as they were a safety hazard for both rail and road users.
Accordingly, the elimination of all 1,054 UMLCs were planned by offering alternate modes of crossing the track by provision of subways, diversion to adjacent manned level crossings, road under bridges and outright closure due to low road traffic, it added.
SAFE ZONE
The Railway Board had formulated a policy in 2010 to eliminate all unmanned level crossings
Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai divisions became UMLC free earlier this year
The Railways had planned to replace the LCs with subways, diversion to adjacent manned level crossings and road under bridges