Preventing rail accidents at stations: Indian Railways installs dead-end buffers to stop trains; how they help
The manufacturing and testing of these buffers have been carried out at OLEO International Coventry, England (United Kingdom). Interestingly, they do not require any maintenance and also, the buffers have a warranty period of 24 months.
New step by Indian Railways to protect rolling stock and passengers! To avoid accidents due to brake failure or human errors at stations, the Western Railway zone of the national transporter has installed state-of-the-art, maintenance free efficient and effective buffers at Churchgate railway station’s platform number 3. These new dead end buffers are capable of arresting a moving train in case of human errors or failure of brakes in order to safeguard the railway passengers and also to minimise the intensity of damages.
The move will help the national transporter to protect the rolling stock as well as passengers in case a train fails to stop at the platform. According to the Western Railway zone, the newly developed buffer is based on hydro pneumatic principle of shock absorbing. With 1254 KJ capacity of energy absorption, the buffer has been designed to arrest a 15 car EMU train (1300 MT mass) at a speed of 5 km per hour. One of its unique features is that its characteristics change according to operational needs.
The manufacturing and testing of these buffers have been carried out at OLEO International Coventry, England (United Kingdom). Interestingly, they do not require any maintenance and also, the buffers have a warranty period of 24 months.
According to information shared by Indian Railways, at present, there are a total of 43 number of dead-end buffers that are available in Mumbai suburban area. Out of these 43 dead-end buffers, as many as 38 buffers are conventional buffers, while rest of the 5 buffers are hydraulic buffers. Following successful commissioning as well as after observing the performance of new dead-end buffers that have been installed at Churchgate railway station’s platform number 3, Indian Railways may plan another 42 dead buffer sets for replacement.
On June 2015, a local train was dashed with buffer at Churchgate railway station’s platform number 3. However, the damaged ones were temporarily repaired by PL shop onsite, but they needed replacement. Therefore, provision was made for dead end buffers.