Part 7.
At Panjipara, asm R.N. Singh passed on the misinformation that the Avadh-Assam Express was travelling on the Up line to his cabin man in the west cabin, S.P. Singh, who mechanically pulled the requisite levers to clear the train on the Up line. But at neither of the stations did anybody notice that the last of the four signals at a station, the advance starter signal, on the Up line had remained green well after the Avadh-Assam Express had disappeared into the night. Once the nose of a train passes this final signal, it implies that the train has left the station, and the signal automatically trips back to red. The fact that it remained green could mean only one...
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thing: that the train was cleared to go through on that line -- but didn't. At Panjipara, it was cabin man D.C. Gupta who was best placed to spot this: he was manning the east cabin which is closest to this signal.
The railway tracks in this part of North Dinajpur cut across paddy fields with stagnant water. "It's almost impossible to fall asleep at night because of the mosquitoes," complains one cabin man. Marandi, the man at the Gaisal west cabin, would have suffered these nights many times before. His colleagues say that he didn't drink and was sincere about his work. But as incorrect information got passed from one station to another, there was apparently little that he could do to avert the tragedy. Trains at speeds between 80 and 100 km an hour have a braking distance of at least 1.5 km. To avoid a collision they would thus have to be at least 3 km apart. On a dark rainy night, perhaps that's too far to look from the vantage of a lonely cabin.
#Continued.....