Rescue workers use a crane to lift a carriage in Fatehpur on Monday. (AFP)

July 11: The probe into yesterday’s Kalka Mail derailment is focused on a possible track fault or engine snag.

Sabotage has virtually been ruled out and the initial suspicion that the accident was caused by the driver applying emergency brakes while the train was hurtling at 108kmph has now weakened.

The official probe by the chief commissioner of railway safety starts on Wednesday, but most railway officials are privately pinning the blame on faulty tracks, damaged by the increased load forced on them by a revenue-hungry ministry.

One dissenting voice has been that of Railway Board chairperson Vinay Mittal, who said he found no fault in the tracks at Malwan, the site of the 12.20pm derailment. “The signals were functioning normally and the fish plates were intact,” Mittal said, adding that engine malfunction was the likeliest cause.

He said a cabin man had told him that immediately before the accident, when the train was close to pole No. 927/23, its engine began shaking and emitting smoke.

Gang-men checking the tracks less than 1km from Malwan too have said the engine’s wheels were giving out smoke, some railway sources said.

Train guard Umesh Pandey and some passengers have confirmed that the train wobbled violently moments before the accident. “It was as if the coach was dancing on the tracks,” said Mukula Chaudhury, who was in S3.

But railway officials and a former driver, Sharad Mishra, said poor track conditions too can cause wobbling.

Fault finger

A track fault means a crack, caused by years of wear and tear, at one of the vulnerable joints held together with fishplates or fasteners.

Experts said increasing the load on tracks, which have a certain lifespan, damages them and puts lives at risk. They said that in its eagerness to earn more, the railways had allowed increased wagonloads during Lalu Prasad’s tenure as minister.

To make matters worse, most railway ministers of the past two decades have ignored track renewal.

The loading capacity per goods train has been raised from 4,825 tonnes to 5,200 tonnes in recent years by adding more wagons and increasing the load on each. The average load on tracks is up from 52kg to 60kg per metre.

Railway sources said over 42,000km of tracks had been renewed with long-welded rails to reduce fishplate joints, the tracks’ weakest link. But some 22,000km of tracks are yet to be renewed and some of them are over five decades old.

“The funds allocation for track renewal has been falling over the past decade,” said R.N. Agha, a former Railway Board member (traffic). The 2010-11 budget estimate for track renewal was Rs 408 crore, but it was revised to Rs 329.50 crore. The 2011-12 budget allocation was Rs 330 crore.

Brake denial

Kalka driver A.K. Singh, who is in his 50s, and his assistant U.K. Yadav, 48, have denied using emergency brakes. Railway officials, however, said this angle could be fully ruled out only after a physical verification of the train.

Former Railway Board member (traffic) S.B. Ghosh Dastidar, however, said the brakes were a safety measure and could not have caused the accident. He contested the claim made by North Central Railway general manager H.C. Joshi yesterday that the Kalka, travelling at 108km, was at “full speed”.

Other railway sources too said the train’s WAP7-class engine was capable of doing 140-160kmph and so “the speed of 108kmph or the use of brakes at that speed couldn’t have caused the accident”.

Yesterday, driver Singh had told the media: “Even trains running at 150kmph have been stopped safely by applying emergency brakes.”