Ready to tackle delay caused by fog in winter season: Northern Railway official

By Nishant Ketu
New Delhi [India], December 25 (ANI): The Northern Railways has made various arrangements as part of its preparedness to tackle and overcome the problem of delay in trains' during the winter season due to dense fog.
Northern Railway General Manager Ashutosh Gangal on Friday explained the various tools used by the authorities in tackling the dense fog to avoid delay in Railways. He said that Northern Railway is ready to tackle delays caused by fog in the winter season.
"Railways have a detailed protocol to tackle the fog in winter. Visibility Test Object (VTO) has been installed at railway stations which are fixed at a distance of 180 meters from the starting engine of a train. If that does not come into the visibility of the station master and station superintendent, they announce "fog condition" and after that fog signal gets registered in Visibility Test Object," Gangal told ANI.
"From the fog signal, we get to know when did the fog start, and when visibility improves, fog condition gets withdrawn. Train operators and drivers also get trained to deal with foggy situations," he added.
The official said that in all locomotive a "Fog Safety Device" has been fixed which provides a fog signal to the crew members.
"Fog Safe Devices have been installed inside the cabin which provides the signal to the crew members. They get an idea of what speed they should run the trains from the fog signal. For crew's comforts luminous paint is being used at Signal points," he added.
Northern Railway General Manager Ashutosh Gangal further said that a team also engaged in patrolling in the night to check whether there is a fault in any track.
"GPS based tracking systems are being provided to the line patrolling staff so that they can be in constant touch with the closest stations on either side to effectively report any untoward," he said. (ANI)