View: India needs to focus on tracks before trains

We are still not sure exactly why India’s storied Coromandel Express plowed into a stationary freight train late on Friday night last week, setting off a three-train pileup that cost almost 300 people their lives. But it seems likely that something as mundane as a signaling fault could have been to blame, sending the express down the wrong tracks toward the parked goods carriages loaded down with iron ore.

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The tragedy shocked Indians not just because so many died, but because we have grown accustomed to the idea that railroad travel in this country has gotten much safer.