North Central Railway sets up committee to probe derailment of material train near UP's Prayagraj

New Delhi, Jul 10 (PTI) The North Central Railway (NCR) zone has set up a five-member junior level committee to probe the derailment of a divisional material train at Manda Road station near Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj on July 5.

The probe body will also look into the reasons and suggest action against staff, who didn’t report the derailment to the divisional level officers.

A divisional material train, which is used to replace old railway tracks with the new ones, derailed at the side lines at Manda Road station near Prayagraj at 9:10 pm on July 5 and the staff involved in this case tried not to report the matter to the divisional office.

Seven railway staff on duty at the time of the incident have so far been suspended.

“Jr Scale officer level committee consisting of following officers has been nominated with approval of competent authority to investigate the cause of derailment of train no DN DMT/PQRS goods (a specific train used for track replacement) at MNF hot axle siding (Manda Road station side line) on 05.07.2025 at 21.10 hrs and suggest recommendations," said an official circular issued on Wednesday mentioning the designation of five officials.

“The case was not reported to the division. Same also to be investigated,” it added.

The five-member probe team consists of Assistant Divisional Engineer from Mirzapur, Assistant Divisional Mechanical Engineer (Operations & Fuel), Assistant Divisional Electrical Engineer (Operation), Assistant Operations Manager (Change) and Assistant Divisional Signal and Telecom Engineer from Prayagraj.

“The senior most member of the committee will be the president of the committee,” said the circular, adding that the committee should complete the probe within the stipulated period of seven days and submit a report.

“DMT/PQRS is a track laying machine with about half a dozen wagons attached to it. It removes the old track, keeps it in one of the wagons and then takes a new track from another wagon and puts it in place of the old one,” said a railway official.

“Though the derailment didn’t cause any human injury or detention of the train since it happened on the side line, it did cause delay in track laying work and financial loss to the railways,” he added. PTI JP AS AS