The South Central Railway (SCR) has been the frontrunner in commissioning Kavach, the indigenously-developed Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), designed by the Railways at Lucknow-based Research Design and Standards Organisation in association with three industry partners over the past few years.
In fact, the pilot stage of the technology was first tested for 264 kms covering 25 stations across Wadi-Vikarabad- Sanath Nagar and Vikarabad-Bidar sections in 2013-14. This was, over the years, extended by an additional 936 km, taking the cumulative deployment of Kavach to 1,200 km, informed chief engineer Rajiv Ganguly on Friday.
Works on the high-density network of 1,078 km covering Balarshah-Gudur, Vijaywada-Duvvada and another 1,337 km of highly-used network is under consideration within the zone
In 2020-21, Kavach has been commissioned over 321 km covering 32 stations in the Nanded, Secunderabad and Hyderabad divisions. In 2021-22, the plan is to extend it to 879 km covering 79 stations and 13 level crossings with 615 km completed last month.
“Work on completing the targetted 264 km is progressing at a fast pace,” informed senior officials. The technology also enables centralised, live monitoring of train movements through the Network Monitor System, and in case of overspeeding, brakes are automatically applied, they added.
