• Dr. Manpreet Kaur

Safety has been one of the biggest concerns in the Indian Railways system. Indian Railways has suffered from the absence of a comprehensive framework for capacity expansion over last decade. Consequently, only incremental changes have taken place through gauge conversion, doubling of lines, and some modernization of signaling etc., along with continuous addition of new lines on uneconomic routes. Presently, the network is plagued by infrastructure and carrying capacity constraints and most of the routes on the high density network have already reached saturation in line capacity utilization. There has been a wave of rail accidents in India over the last few years, the major were due to derailments and level crossings further signaling towards the paucity of investments in IR infrastructure. The present study is carried out to analyze the trend in rail accidents in India and the major causes behind frequent and repeated accidents (derailments and level crossing accidents). The biggest causes of rail accidents in India include asset failures like track defects such as rail fracture and inadequate maintenance along with failure of railway staff (human factor). The pressure of passenger and freight trains does not give enough space to carry on repairs. If trains are cancelled, freight and passengers are affected. Apart from these, IR is facing a severe financial crunch due to which it has been unable to spare adequate funds for safety works especially on up gradation of rail infrastructure.

Keywords: Indian Railways, Safety, Under-investment, Derailments, Level crossings.

"An Evaluation of Rail Accidents in India", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no.570-577, May-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905Q80.pdf

"An Evaluation of Rail Accidents in India", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no. pp570-577, May-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905Q80.pdf