West Central Railway has installed Electronic Interlocking (EI) in 135 of its railway stations spread across its three divisions: Jabalpur, Bhopal and Kota. This follows Indian Railways’ decision to upgrade signalling systems all over its network.
Of these 135 railway stations, EI has been implemented in 45 stations each in Jabalpur, Kota and Bhopal divisions of WCR, said a statement on Friday.
What is EI?
EI employs computer-based systems and electronic equipment to control signals, points and level-crossing gates. Unlike conventional electrical relay interlocking systems where innumerable wires and relays are used, EI utilises software and electronic components to manage the interlocking logic. It reads the inputs from the signalling gears in the yard and processes the commands from the operational console (VDU) in a fail-safe manner.
Benefits:
This technology has resulted in multiple benefits such as enhanced safety, better operational efficiency besides enabling an increase in the speed of trains.
This system minimizes the risk of accidents caused by setting of conflicting routes for train movements, misplaced signals, or human oversight. Electronic Interlocking can be interfaced with KAVACH technology as well as the Centralised Traffic Control system (CTC).
A day earlier, Western Railway ( WR ) in a statement, said, EI had been implemented in 320 out of the 513 interlocked railway stations under its jurisdiction.
