Did she stay overnight and overseen the salvage & rescue? Good on for her.
The railway minister is not only monitoring rescue but also ensuring rail traffic resumed at earliest. Having minister ensures you get all help from center and state at earliest without delay.
Let final report come in. Anger is understandable but even both state and center seem to be shaken. Railway minister should resign if his policy directly / indirectly led to incident. He is a very capable minister we got in decades who has been delivering overall good for ministry - which is rare in this country.
Why Minister resign ???
Do note the "TRACKS" were change and laid just few years back and were new.
It seems Equipment Failure i.e. Signaling and Switching.
This station has got "Level 3" Interlocking i.e. high standard for Interlocking.
Above this comes "Electronic Interlocking" and now "Root Relay Interlocking".
In Level-3 interlocking the roots are set electrically on a panel by Station Master
Hence if Station Master properly set main line for Coromandal Express and Green Signal Been seen by Loco Pilot to advance on main line ----
Which means Station Master do set the interlocking properly hence "Green Signal" to go ahead to Coromandal Express which was rightly seen by Loco Pilot of the Train.
Now the question what went wrong????????????
It primafacie seems Track Circuiting & Signalling Failure.
Kindly note
1) Before Coromandal Express a Goods Train has arrived and was transferred to "loop line"
2) And the Track was set for Coromandal Express was set to take Main Line.
3) Loco Pilot of saw the "Green Signal" to advance with its normal speed on main line
4) However the Signal was "Green" but, the tracks did not CHANGE & RETURNED to "Main Line" from Loop Line, which were earlier set for Goods Train
5) Coromandal Express instead of proceeding to "Main Line" took "Loop Line"
6) And on this Loop Line, Goods Train was Standing, the Coromandal Express rammed Goods Train from Behind & the collision of so sever that Locomotive of Coromandal Express jumped above carriage of Goods Train.
7) You Just Cannot Change Tracks at "Full Speed" the Train is bound to Derail in such Situation, also take into account the Goods Train Standing on the Same Track.
8) At the same time on another "Main Line" Bangalore-Kolkata Express was Crossing the Station.
9) And at the time of collision the Last 3 Coaches of Banglore-Kolkata Express were hit by derailing Coaches of Coromandal Express. Hence we have "Triple Collision".
Point to be noted :
1) Failure of Switching System
2) Failure of Signalling System
3) Combination of both the above gave Faulty "OutPut" to Interlocking System hence complete "Collapse" of Interlocking System.
How all three failed at the same time ??????????
Reasons:
1) Sabotage : - Can be ruled out. Reason - Someone have to have complete knowhow of "Inter Locking" System to and how to breach it in such a way that you get desired display but the commands given never carried out.
Seems Impossible.
2) System Failure : This seems main Cause. But how multiple individual circuits "Switching"+"Signalling" failed without get noticed by "InterLocking" System.
3) Maintenance Failure : Possible.
4) Equipment Failure : Possible.
5) Human Error : Cannot be Ruled out At this Particular Time, but not likely.
Caution : This puts in question all the "INTER-LOCKING EQUIPMENTS & SYSTEMS" used in INDIAN RAILWAYS at this point of time.
THOROUGH SECURITY AUDIT AND RETESTING OF SYSTEMS USED IN INDIAN RAILWAYS is needed.
At this point of time this Accident has put all TRAINS IN INDIA TO "UNSAFE & HAZARDOUS Level" due to "UNSAFE & QUESTIONABLE" Inter-Locking Systems.