Increasing train parting, hot axle cases have safety implications; need investigation: Railways

New Delhi, Oct 21 (PTI) Rising cases of train parting and overheating of axle bearing leading to wheel jamming and derailments have serious safety implications and require detailed investigation as well as corrective measures, railway mechanical engineers have said.

Principal chief mechanical engineers (PCMEs) expressed concern over the issues while discussing operational safety in a conference held recently in Puri, Odisha.

According to the minutes of the conference circulated among senior officials recently by the Railway Board, a hot axle in rolling stock can cause blockage of railway lines, detachment of coaches and other issues.

The document said that these issues need to be investigated in details along with corrective actions such as improvement in design and maintenance aspects on priority.

“Hot axles and train partings should be addressed through a detailed review of both global practices and case-specific data, enabling identification of root causes and adoption of best practices,” it said.

It added that the Indian Railways is experiencing an average three hot axle cases per day and train partings are also on the higher side.

“Objective and time bound action should be taken to eliminate team failures. Conditional monitoring of rolling stock using the latest technologies such as AI and related tools was emphasized. It was also decided that Hot Axle Box Detectors will be procured centrally, with Northern Railway designated as the nodal agency for this procurement,” the document said.

The Indian Railways has installed Hot Box Detectors (HBDs) at various trackside locations across the rail network. When trains cross over the device, it can detect overheated wheel bearings and alert the train crew in real time.

“Each HBD unit should be capable of communicating with one another to ensure proper detection of faulty bearings well in advance, thereby preventing the occurrence of hot axle cases. RDSO (Research Designs & Standards Organisation) will develop the required protocol to enable this,” it added.

Mechanical experts were concerned about unusual hot axle cases at the Dedicated Freight Corridor as, according to them, up to July 2025, 49 per cent of hot axle cases are reported over DFC which is not commensurate to traffic.

“Overall, 55 per cent of failures are reported by DFC alone. Failure reporting on DFC should be critically reviewed and a meeting should be planned with the officials of DFCCIL to sort out the reporting in online ICMS (Integrated Coaching Management System) unusual cases,” the minutes of the meeting said.

“There have been cases of train parting in freight as well as coaching stock. This has operational and safety implications. Action to be taken for bringing it down to zero,” the document said.

When approached for response on the rise of hot axle as well as train parting cases, Sudhanshu Mani, leader of Vande Bharat project, outlined three important issues.

“In spite of the subject of hot box detection through trackside monitoring being experimented with for decades, the technology has not matured yet and attempts at acquiring/developing new technologies are lackadaisical," Mani, a retired general manager in the railways, said.

According to Mani, a major contract awarded to Wabtec, a global rolling stock manufacturing company, for the said purpose was cancelled by the Railways.

“More cases on DFCs showed that the bearings in use on wagons are not sustaining in uninterrupted long runs which must be studied thoroughly and early,” he said.

“Bearing technology has since improved and Indian Railways should keep abreast, for example, switch over to upgraded K class bearings with improved seals on wagons as has been done in the US,” he added.

Mani suggested that rolling stock should be equipped with an onboard condition monitoring system with bearing and impact detection which will render trackside equipment superfluous.

“A trial of such an onboard condition monitoring system by M/s Orient Foundries has been approved,” he said. PTI JP JP KVK KVK