Railway expert Sudhanshu Mani, the brain behind India’s Vande Bharat Express, opined that the ‘Kavach’ system couldn’t have prevented the Odisha train accident.
“Kavach couldn’t have stopped this accident. Prima facie, this does not look like a case of signalling failure. The root cause looks like the derailment of the first train. The government should investigate why the first train was derailed,” Sudhanshu Mani told a news platform. He added that the Coromandel Express driver couldn’t have pulled the brakes upon seeing the obstruction, as the train was very fast.
Kavach is an automatic braking system in case the loco pilot fails to act as, one of the major features of the ‘Kavach’ anti-collision system. It has been pointed out that the accident could have been prevented if the braking system had been operational on the route on which the accident took place.