Controller Muruganandam and two station masters, Beemsingh Meena (Kalligudi) and Jayakumar (Tirumangalam), were placed under suspension after two passenger trains were set off on a collision course on the Madurai-Virudhunagar section on Thursday.
“They were suspended immediately after the incident that was reported around 6.50 p.m. [on Thursday],” said V.R. Lenin, Divisional Railway Manager.
On Friday, a high-level committee comprising Chief Safety Officer R.K. Mehta, Chief Passenger and Transportation Manager T. Sivakumar and Chief Signal Engineer P.V. Rajasekar conducted an inquiry into the incident.
The officers who were their way for a safety audit on the Karur-Dindigul section on Thursday rushed to Madurai to conduct the inquiry, sources said.
Besides the three suspended officials, the gatekeeper of the Sivarakottai railway gate and the loco pilot of the Madurai-bound passenger train that was stopped midway with the help of the gatekeeper were questioned by the officials.
Initial inquiries by railway officials revealed that the station master of Tirumangalam had sent an SOS to the railway controller after passengers of the Shencottah-bound train started protesting as the train was held up for nearly one hour following a block failure in the Tirumangalam and Kalligudi section.
The railway controller had detained the passenger train that arrived at Tirumangalam at 5.55 p.m, but allowed three other express trains, including Guruvayur express, to pass through the section.
Meanwhile, the station master of Kalligudi allowed the Shencottah-Madurai passenger that arrived here at 6.30 p.m. to leave for Tirumangalam with a line clear ticket (a written order given to the locopilot to proceed in the event of signal failure) at 6.50 p.m.
Within few seconds after the train left Kalligudi, the Tirumangalam station master reported about the agitation by the passengers that was turning “violent” and sought his permission to allow the Shencottah Express to leave for Virudhunagar.
The Controller who gave permission to Tirumangalam SM to allow the train to pass the signal with an LCT realised “his mistake” that another train was coming on the same track from Kalligudi and asked the Tirumangalam station master to stop the train leaving for Kalligudi.
“In the heat of the agitation by the passengers, the SM failed to notice that another passenger train was already on the same track. However, both the SMs acted swiftly and stopped the trains, at least 12 km apart,” a railway official said.
While the Shencottah-bound train was stopped just after even as it could crossed only the starter signal, the other train was stopped with the help of the gatekeeper at Sivarakottai.
The inquiry will reveal how the standard procedure in exchanging information, including private numbers, were flouted while line clear tickets were issued for allowing trains to pass through the failed signals at both ends.