Railways tie crackers to beat fog

LUCKNOW: More than making trains and station wi-fi enabled or running high-speed trains, timely operation of trains is the utmost service railways can offer to lakhs of passengers who board trains everyday. Fog has thrown movement of trains out of gear and railways are still tying 'crackers' on tracks to alert drivers.

Already finding its obsolete techniques inept in countering the effects of fog on rail movement, the railways now face a shortage of 'fog-signal men' to alert engine drivers about signals.

Lucknow division of Northern Railways, which has 158 stations, witnesses dense fog every winter. As many as 138 stations in the division declared fog on December 10 and 92 stations declared fog the next day on December 11. Soon afterward, the movement of long distance and overnight trains started getting adversely affected. With foggy weather set to get severe in the coming days, schedule of more trains will be affected.

Trains run behind schedule during fog because of reduced visibility. In normal weather, driver can clearly see the signal from 300 metre but fog reduces visibility manifold and a driver has to be alerted about the approaching signal.

This is where the fog-signal man comes in. The fog-signal man staff ties a cracker on the tracks around 275 metres before the outer signal which is 1.5 km from the station the train is heading towards. "There should ideally be two men, one each at entry and exit of the station who should tie a cracker as soon as a train passes through it," said a source. When the train passes over the cracker tied on the track, the driver gets alerted about the next signal and reduces speed.

The railways has no separate staff to work as fog-signal men. "A staffer cannot be put on the duty for more than three hours because standing in the open for even this long is tough enough," said a source. There are no separate appointments for fog-signal men. With railways already short of staff, not all stations have enough men to spare to tie crackers on the tracks.

In such a case, it is entirely the driver's responsibility to ensure safety of passengers, said sources. Winters also have more rail fractures being reported. That requires thorough patrolling along the tracks and extra staff to do the job.

To indicate fog, a Vision Test Object (VTO) is set up at the station (which could be any fixed structure) at least 180 metres from the starter signal of the station. It's when the VTO could not be seen clearly from the station that a fog is declared at the station.

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