NEW DELHI/CHENNAI: A joint inspection note on the Mysuru-Darbhanga Bagmati Express-freight train collision near Chennai last week, prepared by seven senior railway officials, suggests that the train may have derailed at the intersection point. Meanwhile, a separate investigation conducted by the Tamil Nadu railway police said the accident may have been caused because of removal of nuts from the rails. As per the investigation conducted by three railway police teams, three nuts were removed in Kavaripettai and six nuts near Ponneri. There was a problem in shifting the rails from the loop track to the main track as the nuts were removed, causing the train to crash on the loop track, the investigation report said. A railway spokesperson said the inspection note will be one of the inputs for the Commissioner of Railway Safety to prepare the final investigation report. “The experts who have prepared the joint note didn’t say that they found any mechanical part opened or loosened at the accident site. Instead, they found nuts, bolts, rails, tongue rail, and other similar items in broken condition,” said a safety expert after analysing the report. The safety expert’s assertion gets support from the data logger’s yard simulation video in which it appeared that the train was moving on the main line as well as the loop line.“As the train can move in only one direction, the data logger’s yard simulation video hints that it might have derailed at the interlocking point,” K P Arya, former chief signal and telecom engineer/information technology in Northern Railway, said.
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