[Gannu_1]

Originally Posted by Scarlet_Rider

A very interesting piece of engineering: A Diamond Railway Crossing near Nagpur Railway Station

Team BHP goes for the Seltos facelift media drive at Nagpur and you don’t miss this opportunity.



But as evident from the snap, one set of tracks wasn’t being used; plenty of surface rust on them. Plus, I read on another article that this isn’t exactly the place where east-west and north-south tracks meet. Nevertheless, one of a kind location (out of the two, the third one in Dhanbad and the fourth in Cochin apparently shut down) where this crossing happens.

Google maps location - https://maps.app.goo.gl/nB7Y498xETV2JiD86?g_st=ic

[Altrozed]

Further down the track is the place where East west line meets the North South line and there is no diamond crossing at that location.
This less used line seen in the pic directed towards the yard which is seldom used.

[unk9ja]

A friend of mine captured a few pictures on his way to his native.

JCB loaded rake in KJM





Vande Bharat at KCVL







Pics credit to Visakh

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

Nevertheless, one of a kind location (out of the two, the third one in Dhanbad and the fourth in Cochin apparently shut down) where this crossing happens.

There's one in Bhusawal too. Location - Gmaps

Edit: not exactly a "diamond" shape but the north-south meeting east-West junction.

[itwasntme]

Maybe a silly question but is there a simple way to check which scheduled passenger train(s) are going to pass by any given station at the current time? That would help in getting pictures of the nice ones.

[BoneCollector]

Originally Posted by itwasntme

Maybe a silly question but is there a simple way to check which scheduled passenger train(s) are going to pass by any given station at the current time? That would help in getting pictures of the nice ones.

Yes. You can download NTES from Play Store for Android and check live station status for upto next 8 hours.

[itwasntme]

@BoneCollector: Downloaded NTES but it looks like only trains that are slated to stop at the relevant station are displayed. I am looking for all trains passing by, whether they stop there or not.

Clicked a couple of videos at Rajanukunte (RNN):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=bIVCmRvxXpo?feature=share

https://youtu.be/MZErei6VsZM

[BoneCollector]

Originally Posted by itwasntme

@BoneCollector: Downloaded NTES but it looks like only trains that are slated to stop at the relevant station are displayed. I am looking for all trains passing by, whether they stop there or not.

When one knows what time a train is supposed to cross/stop at a station, one can almost always come to its tentative time to cross a railfanning location. That's how railfans calculate timings for photography and videos.

You can also try with Google maps. It also gives some information about trains around the prominent railway stations upto a few kilometres on all routes. The information shared is roughly accurate.


Bangalore junction.


Bangalore junction.


New Delhi railway station.


New Delhi railway station.


New Delhi railway station.

[SR-71]

Real life desi version of 'Unstoppable' - Driverless goods train does 70+ kilometers at triple digit speeds before it was brought to halt safely. What I did not understand is what happened to the dead-man's switch that's supposed to prevent such incidents.

https://youtu.be/pcc7f9c2ibE?si=8u-pcol9Y499Ie6y

[DroopyGarfield]

Originally Posted by SR-71

Real life desi version of 'Unstoppable' - Driverless goods train does 70+ kilometers at triple digit speeds before it was brought to halt safely. What I did not understand is what happened to the dead-man's switch that's supposed to prevent such incidents.

Short answer: Indian railways rollout of Dead Man Switch is not uniform on all locos and is currently found on MEMU trains with single LP (loco pilot).

Long answer: Indian Railways has devised 2 pronged approach to tackle such scenario - MEMU trains have Dead Man Switch to tackle it automatically and other locos (including WAP and WAG series loco) have SOP based approach wherein a powered loco is never to be left empty. Also, LPs schedule is very adhoc and sometimes, these LPs are rostered with only 1 hour to spare for their next journey.

In this day and age, when IR has a lot of investment going on in hi-tech areas(read bullet trains), this kind of SOP driven approach relying on humans is an invitation to disaster. We dont even know if similar accidents happen but were dealt without involving media scrutiny (say, a shunting yard incident which never made it to the media but was known to IR staff). The technology exists, someone high enough in IR would need to decide if they have enough money to retrofit in existing locos.

In the words of aviation experts, an accident is never an isolated event but a chain of (mis)events finally cascading to the accident.

[MadiMaama]

Originally Posted by itwasntme

@BoneCollector: Downloaded NTES but it looks like only trains that are slated to stop at the relevant station are displayed. I am looking for all trains passing by, whether they stop there or not.[/url]

Please visit indiarailinfo.com and select the station and put the filter to all trains.

[whitewing]

Originally Posted by DroopyGarfield

Short answer: Indian railways rollout of Dead Man Switch is not uniform on all locos

I can understand a loco rolling off due to a gradient, but how does it pickup speed - that too 60-70KMPH with load without any throttle input?

[SR-71]

Originally Posted by whitewing

I can understand a loco rolling off due to a gradient, but how does it pickup speed - that too 60-70KMPH with load without any throttle input?

Gravity... It looks like Kathua is about 1289 FAMSL (Feet above mean sea level) and Unchi Bassi about 780 FAMSL. That's a drop of 509 feet over a 63-kilometer stretch, almost half as bad the bhor ghats which has 490 feet drop over a 30-kilometer stretch between Khandala and Karjat. I am not saying its apple-to-apple comparison, but I won't be surprised if a 53-wagon freight train gains enough speed in the absence of any substantial resistance, same physics as a roller coaster car hurtling down a slope, no?

[DroopyGarfield]

Originally Posted by whitewing

I can understand a loco rolling off due to a gradient, but how does it pickup speed - that too 60-70KMPH with load without any throttle input?

General topography tells us that Kathua(Jammu, source location) is at 393m above sea level and Dasuya(Punjab, destination) is at 239m. On a related note, Divisional Traffic Manager did confirm that the runaway train finally came to a halt due to steep gradient (link to news article below, this Jammu train runaway is not the only incident this year). This implies that train mostly rolled down in terms of elevation and didn't need constant inputs to pick up speed, gravity did it for them.

if your question is how the entire train weighing 100s of tons covered 70KM on its own due to gravity alone, I am equally surprised. It is possible that loco was kept in gear(for electric locos, implying voltage is being supplied to motors) and perhaps put on parking brake as a small time stop gap measure. This parking brake might have snapped off at some point due to pressure on whole train on a downward slope and the train was not entirely powered by gravity. See, it is a lot of might be, could we, would be etc. and someone will need to make the investigation report public for us to be able to reach a sensible conclusion.

At this point, we could only speculate the true sequence of events and our past (including Odisha train derailing) tells us that the ground staff have evolved to a very method in daily work as compared to SOP. The top bosses either are complicit and know what is happening but keep the facade of SOP ( for plausible deniability) OR are truly detached from the ground reality.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com...3.cms?from=mdr

[itwasntme]

Originally Posted by MadiMaama

Please visit indiarailinfo.com and select the station and put the filter to all trains.

Not working for me for some reason. Even if I choose all trains, it is still showing me only the ones that stop at the particular station. For example, here is a link for Doddballapur (DBU):
https://indiarailinfo.com/departures/1002?tt=0

The BLR-HYD Vande Bharat (and other premium trains) passes through DBU but is not captured in the results. Any thoughts?