Goods trains facing erratic brake system, Railways seeks solution

ON OCTOBER 26, a goods train with 54 coal-laden wagons was moving down a slope in the ghats section of Jharkhand’s Dhanbad division when the brakes failed to work. This immediately set off a complex safety measure. Officials cleared out all other trains from this path, moved the goods train — by then travelling at around 90 kmph — onto a loop line inside a yard at Gurpa in Bihar and effected a derailment.

This was just one incident in a string of failures in the braking system for goods trains, The Indian Express has learnt.