The Indian Railways is now leapfrogging to the Black Box technology to record and store important data on activities inside engine cabins and on tracks as well.
The installation of the eight high-calibre CCTV cameras in each engine cabin has been started by the railways.
Six cameras are for the audio/video recording inside and the remaining two are to monitor tracks in advance with the night vision technology.
Taking a cue from an aircraft black box, all the cameras are connected to a digital video recorder (DVR) which is installed at a secure place inside the engine.
As per the Indian railways claim, it will not be destroyed in the severest of accidents.
The move came after the sarcastic criticism faced by India’s biggest transporter over the previous month’s train tragedy in Amritsar, killing over 60 people.
On the other side, the opposition parties claimed that the driver of the train did not decelerate even when he saw Dussehra revellers brimming over to the rail tracks.
The Chief PRO of Northern Railway, Deepak Kumar said, “Whenever a train accident occurs in our country, the first thing that comes to mind is – whether or not it could have been averted how the driver handled the situation.”
“Therefore, the Ministry of Railways has decided to fill this gap and ensure surveillance in and outside of engine cabins to analyze reasons behind train accidents, added Deepak.
The capacity to store video and audio recordings in the DVR are for 90 days, the officials said.
