Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that a change in the electronic interlocking and the setting of the point machine caused the accident involving the Shalimar Chennai Central Coromandel Express, in which 275 people died. Sarthak Ray takes a look at what interlocking is and how it can malfunction.
What is interlocking?
Interlocking is an arrangement of signals, points—a junction of two railway tracks that can be set in such a manner that a train can be guided from one track to the other—and other elements such as track circuits that is inter-connected in such a manner that the operation’s all elements takes place in the right sequence to ensure safety.
