Major Fire mishap at Route Relay Inter-locking Cabin at Itarsi Junction last week inflicted a lost of Rs.200 Crore to Indian Railways

Major Fire mishap at Route Relay Inter-locking Cabin at Itarsi Junction last week inflicted a lost of Rs.200 Crore to Indian Railways

New Delhi: Indian Railways is likely to suffer a loss of about Rs 200 crore with services of more than 380 trains being affected due to recent major fire at Route Relay Interlocking (RRI) cabin at Itarsi station.

The railways have started to inform passengers about the status of affected trains through SMS. Passengers with confirmed tickets of a cancelled train would get a message about cancellation of their train on their mobile phones. It will take about 35 days to restore the normalcy on the section as the RRI room has been gutted, Railway Board Member (Traffic) Ajay Shukla said here on Friday after returning from Itarsi.

The fire inflicted huge damage to the operation room, indication panel and wiring system.”Since Itarsi junction is centrally located, trains coming from all directions are being disrupted. Now the operation is managed manually, as a result many trains are running late, affecting the punctuality,” Shukla said.

Many trains were cancelled while some have to be diverted. Services of about 200 passenger trains were affected and about 100 freight trains were diverted due to the fire, causing loss to the public transporter.

According to a senior Railway Ministry official, since it will take more than a month to restore normalcy, it is estimated that railways will suffer loss of about Rs 200 crore during this period. Though investigation was on to ascertain the exact cause of fire, electrical fault was suspected for the incident.

RRI is a system by which all the signals and the points or crossings which are used for changing of routes at junction station are operated centrally from a cabin through electrical devices. Divisional officers are camping at the site to manage the situation.


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Itarsi station to get new Route Relay Interlocking system by July 22

Itarsi: Fire that broke out at the Route Relay Interlocking (RRI) at the Itarsi railway junction in Madhya Pradesh on June 17, has affected the services of around 200 trains daily and it would take around 35 days to commission a new panel system. Railway Board Member (Traffic) Ajay Shukla told mediapersons today that the incident is the biggest in the history of Railways. The fire incident has affected the services of trains of the north-south and the east-west routes. He said around hundred points and as many number of signals are operated from the RRI panel of the important junction of Itarsi. The fire has damaged the entire wiring system of the panel. He said that the biggest challenge was restoring the services of the trains at the junction. Some long distance trains route have been diverted. The junction which use to see around 200 trains — both passenger and goods daily — can now handle some 70 mail and passengers trains and around 20 goods train that carry essential commodities. Terming the damage caused to the RRI by fire as extensive, Shukla said the commissioning of a new panel will take around 35 days and by July 22, the new panel is expected to be set up. The panel was set up in 1980 and had already crossed its life of 30 years. Work has been started forsetting up of a new panel at the station. It may be mentioned that a major fire broke out at the Route Relay Interlocking (RRI) at the Itarsi Railway Junction on Wednesday causing massive damage and disrupting rail traffic