INDIAN RAILWAYS ON A RISKY COURSE; LONGTERM INVESTMENT IN HIGH QUALITY RAIL TRACKS AND ROLLING STOCKS – THE PREREQUISITE TO BRING DOWN THE NUMBER OF KILLED AND INJURED TRAIN-PASSENGERS IN DERAILMENT DISASTERS

For a cost-benefit evaluation the question is, how much Safety on Indian Railways is wanted by the Indian Government and how much money the Government is willing to spend for it.

In a cost-benefit evaluation the question is, how much counts the value of train-passenger`s freedom from injury and bodily harm compared to the incurred losses of assets in a train-accident.

One can have the impression that in a cost-benefit evaluation, where the value of a killed or injured train-passenger does not much count, it comes overall cheaper to tolerate and bear the annual losses of assets incurred by nasty and fatal Train-Accidents rather than to spend more money on pro- active Safety related rectifying works, infrastructure and logistics.

To smash old ICF passenger coaches in Train Accidents is not much costly, since those less track-friendly running rolling stocks will be anyway replaced in future by the more track-friendly running LHB coaches. After a nasty  Accident the tracks are usually cleared and repaired within two days. The compensation granted to the next relations of killed train-passengers and spend for the injured ones are marginal low.

HIGH TRACK AND ROLLING STOCK QUALITY FOR ALL INDIAN RAILWAY ROUTES are prerequisites to bring down the number of killed and injured train-passengers in unwanted and nasty Derailment-Disasters.

To guarantee the required long-term HIGH TRACK QUALITY – the prerequisite for ZERO FATAL DERAILMENT – a modern Railway needs for track rectifying works a funding-certainty for a period of at least 15 years; best under a so-called “CAPACITY AND FUNDING AGREEMENT”; see Prof. Dr. Jürgen Siegmann, Technical University Berlin, Department of Track and Railway Operation, in RTR Special Maintenance & Renewal, p.7, July 2007, ISBN: 978-3- 7771-0367- 9, eurailpress, Hamburg, Germany.

Funding-certainty for a period of at least 15 years is a prerequisite to make the Technical Organization INDIAN RAILWAYS more resistant against DERAILMENT-DISASTERS killing and injuring train-passengers.

The costs of improving TRACK QUALITY all arise immediately, but the benefits in form of less unwanted Derailment-Disasters, where train- passengers are killed and injured, emerge only in long term.

To read more, download
INR ON RISKY COURSE