Kanpur: Indian Railways has started implementing Kavach, a domestically developed automatic train protection (ATP) system, in over 87 locomotives at the Electric Loco Shed in Fazalganj, improving railway safety during foggy weather.
The safety mechanism helps prevent collisions between consecutive trains by incorporating advanced braking and alert systems connected to locomotive controls.
Railway officials have authorised the safety system's installation at both Kanpur and Ghaziabad locomotive sheds. Senior divisional electrical engineer Rahul Tripathi said that fitting each train requires two days of non-stop work by four technical experts and the system operates using wireless technology.
"In the first phase, this system was installed in the engines of 70 trains running between Kanpur and several cities at the electric loco shed in Fazalganj. Now, only 17 trains remain to be equipped with this facility, and the work is expected to be completed this month," he said.
Tripathi further explained that Kavach activates when trains come within a specified distance of each other on the same track.
The integrated braking system stops trains before a collision, and issues alerts, allowing drivers to apply emergency brakes. For trains travelling in sequence, the system prevents rear-end collisions by halting the train behind, he said. "The infrastructure comprises trackside optical fibre cables, telecommunication towers placed every 5-6 kilometres, station-based data centres, and track-mounted radio frequency identification (RFID) devices. Each locomotive receives a dedicated safety unit," Triapthi said further.