Railway decides not to proliferate use of ACD:

Railway decides not to proliferate use of ACD: MOS (Railways)

Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha said an alternative system called the train collision avoidance system was being developed by the Research Design and Standards Organization in association with three Indian vendors

New Delhi: The railways has said that there are no plans to increase the coverage of the anti-collision device (ACD) to other zones due to technical and operational problems, the Lok Sabha was informed on Thursday.

Technical and operational problems have been faced in the functioning of ACD in the Northeast Frontier Railway, Manoj Sinha, minister of state for railways, said in a written reply. He said major problems were related to unwarranted breakings which had an adverse impact on the running of trains.

The development and deployment of ACD was taken up by Konkan Railway Corp. Ltd as a pilot project on a 1,738 km route. However, despite efforts towards resolving technical and operational glitches, there have been unwarranted breakings, Sinha said.

In order to deploy the system on the main line sections having multiple lines or electrified routes, Konkan Railway developed ACD version 2 with revised specifications and design configuration. Trials of ACD version 2 were conducted on the Pattabiram and Arakkonam sections in Chennai division in Southern zone during 2010-11.

Sinha said a large number of complex operational and technical problems were faced during the trials in the Southern Railway, which could not be fully resolved by Konkan Railway due to design limitations of ACD.

He said that, to overcome major problems noticed in ACD, an alternative system termed as the train collision avoidance system (TCAS) was being developed indigenously by the Research Design and Standards Organization in association with three Indian vendors.