Railways can’t sacrifice efficiency by making trains crawl through forests. Monitoring of wildlife movement can’t be foolproof along long stretches of railway tracks. But symbolism is cheaper than investment.
FirstPost, 15 November, 2013
The killer railway tracks of north Bengal claimed another seven elephants on Wednesday. That takes the death toll to at least 48 since 2004. This year alone, the Chhapramari-Gorumara route has killed 18 jumbos. With at least another nine elephants severely injured in Wednesday’s collision, the count is likely to go up further.
According to reports, a large herd of at least 40 elephants was crossing the Jaldhaka Bridge in Hilajora forest at around 6 in the evening when the Assam- bound Jaipur-Kamakhya Kavi Guru Express came charging in at 80 km per hour. The driver claimed to have applied the brakes but it was too late. The impact of the collision threw several elephants, calves included, off the track and damaged the bridge. It was a gory sight.
Elephant deaths on railway tracks have been making frequent headlines in recent years. Outraged conservationists demanded immediate steps when the Coromandel Express ran over six jumbos near Berhampur in Odisha on 30 December 2012. Another two accidents in January – one on the same killer tracks in north Bengal — made the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways discuss elephant safety.
Every time there is an accident, the railways and forest authorities play the standard blame game. The former blames the forest staff for not alerting them about elephant movement. The latter accuse the locomotive driver of breaking the 50 kmph speed limit. After the January accident in north Bengal, for example, the Railways defended the driver who sped the train at 100 kmph in the dark because it was still half an hour to 7 pm when speed restrictions come into force. Only then did the forest department realize that the 7 pm-5 am low-speed window did not cover the extended dark hours during winter and change it to a sunset-sunrise schedule.
On paper, however, this speed limit applies to only 17.4 km of the total length of the 163 km stretch between Alipurduar and Siliguri. In practice, the go-slow distance is calculated by adding a series of short stretches – about 1-3 km – which do not even cover the braking distance. In effect, trains must run at a lower speed along the entire distance to be able to follow the speed limit along the designated stretches. So it did not make much of a difference when the forest department increased the 17.4 km go-slow distance to 79.60 km earlier this year.
Efficiency of a railway network depends mostly on its speed. Of the 88 identified elephant corridors in India, 40 have national highways running through them, 21 have railway tracks and 18 have both. Elsewhere, roads and railways cut through hundreds of kilometres of wildlife habitat. Does it make any economic sense to impose speed restrictions on such length of the network? Accidents anyway happen even at low speeds due to a number of factors, including human error.
Speed restrictions are feasible only when imposed along a short stretch, such as the 11 km killer track near Berhampore in Odisha or the 8 km stretch that cuts through Jharkhand’s Palamu or the 4 km death trap in the Palghat Gap that connects Kerala’s Palakkad and Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore on both sides of the Western Ghats. It is not an option on steep gradients, such as Assam’s Karbi Anglong, where trains must accelerate to climb the slope.
Wherever possible, the real solution is to realign road and railway tracks that run through critical forest areas. Why restrict speed along the 80km Alipurduar-Siliguri stretch when there is a less vulnerable alignment available through Falakata? Of course, some alignments do not have an alternative. A few years ago, the Supreme Court sought the view of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) on the viability of building two elephant overpasses on a national highway cutting through Rajaji national park. Asked if elephants would indeed use the overpasses, the WII chief threw in the towel: “Ask the elephants!”
The SC rejected overpasses and instead, a Rs 100 crore project is underway to build a 0.9 km elevated stretch of highway between Motichur and Doiwala. There is a similar demand for elevated stretches in north Bengal but left to the railways and highway authorities, the default solution is a low-cost overpass or underpass no wider than a service duct.
It is unlikely that elephants will ever use overpasses, given the vibration from traffic flowing below. Narrow, tunnel-like passages are no option either. Kenya showed the way with a 6-metre underpass linking Mount Kenya National Park and Nagre Ndare Forest Reserve which elephant herds have taken to since 2011. In India, two underpasses on a 35-km stretch of NH 152 linking Pathsala in Assam to Nganglam in Bhutan — that cuts through the buffer zone of Manas national park — are an example.
Thanks to Anwaruddin Choudhury, then deputy commissioner of Buxa district, the original road running through the core of the national park was realigned and elephants safely got to the other side through two 30 feet high and 100 feet wide passageways. Alternatively, say experts, roads could go underground (as recommended for the highway intersecting Kaziranga) or elephants could be funneled though fencing to designated level-crossing zones where herds will not struggle to climb the tracks.
But then, lack of solutions was never the problem. Investment is and has always been. Railway tracks and highways are only venturing further every day, into wildlife habitats, into the red corridor which comprises vast tracts of elephant forests in central India. By 2020, the dream is to run trains at 250-350 kmph. It will take some resolve to recognize and ensure that this way forward also includes a way out for wildlife. Our policymakers cannot choose between the interests of the country’s economy and its wildlife. And if they do, get used to the sight of blood on the tracks.
FirstPost, 15 November, 2013
The killer railway tracks of north Bengal claimed another seven elephants on Wednesday. That takes the death toll to at least 48 since 2004. This year alone, the Chhapramari-Gorumara route has killed 18 jumbos. With at least another nine elephants severely injured in Wednesday’s collision, the count is likely to go up further.
According to reports, a large herd of at least 40 elephants was crossing the Jaldhaka Bridge in Hilajora forest at around 6 in the evening when the Assam- bound Jaipur-Kamakhya Kavi Guru Express came charging in at 80 km per hour. The driver claimed to have applied the brakes but it was too late. The impact of the collision threw several elephants, calves included, off the track and damaged the bridge. It was a gory sight.
Elephant deaths on railway tracks have been making frequent headlines in recent years. Outraged conservationists demanded immediate steps when the Coromandel Express ran over six jumbos near Berhampur in Odisha on 30 December 2012. Another two accidents in January – one on the same killer tracks in north Bengal — made the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways discuss elephant safety.
Every time there is an accident, the railways and forest authorities play the standard blame game. The former blames the forest staff for not alerting them about elephant movement. The latter accuse the locomotive driver of breaking the 50 kmph speed limit. After the January accident in north Bengal, for example, the Railways defended the driver who sped the train at 100 kmph in the dark because it was still half an hour to 7 pm when speed restrictions come into force. Only then did the forest department realize that the 7 pm-5 am low-speed window did not cover the extended dark hours during winter and change it to a sunset-sunrise schedule.
On paper, however, this speed limit applies to only 17.4 km of the total length of the 163 km stretch between Alipurduar and Siliguri. In practice, the go-slow distance is calculated by adding a series of short stretches – about 1-3 km – which do not even cover the braking distance. In effect, trains must run at a lower speed along the entire distance to be able to follow the speed limit along the designated stretches. So it did not make much of a difference when the forest department increased the 17.4 km go-slow distance to 79.60 km earlier this year.
Speed restrictions are feasible only when imposed along a short stretch, such as the 11 km killer track near Berhampore in Odisha or the 8 km stretch that cuts through Jharkhand’s Palamu or the 4 km death trap in the Palghat Gap that connects Kerala’s Palakkad and Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore on both sides of the Western Ghats. It is not an option on steep gradients, such as Assam’s Karbi Anglong, where trains must accelerate to climb the slope.
Wherever possible, the real solution is to realign road and railway tracks that run through critical forest areas. Why restrict speed along the 80km Alipurduar-Siliguri stretch when there is a less vulnerable alignment available through Falakata? Of course, some alignments do not have an alternative. A few years ago, the Supreme Court sought the view of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) on the viability of building two elephant overpasses on a national highway cutting through Rajaji national park. Asked if elephants would indeed use the overpasses, the WII chief threw in the towel: “Ask the elephants!”
The SC rejected overpasses and instead, a Rs 100 crore project is underway to build a 0.9 km elevated stretch of highway between Motichur and Doiwala. There is a similar demand for elevated stretches in north Bengal but left to the railways and highway authorities, the default solution is a low-cost overpass or underpass no wider than a service duct.
It is unlikely that elephants will ever use overpasses, given the vibration from traffic flowing below. Narrow, tunnel-like passages are no option either. Kenya showed the way with a 6-metre underpass linking Mount Kenya National Park and Nagre Ndare Forest Reserve which elephant herds have taken to since 2011. In India, two underpasses on a 35-km stretch of NH 152 linking Pathsala in Assam to Nganglam in Bhutan — that cuts through the buffer zone of Manas national park — are an example.
Thanks to Anwaruddin Choudhury, then deputy commissioner of Buxa district, the original road running through the core of the national park was realigned and elephants safely got to the other side through two 30 feet high and 100 feet wide passageways. Alternatively, say experts, roads could go underground (as recommended for the highway intersecting Kaziranga) or elephants could be funneled though fencing to designated level-crossing zones where herds will not struggle to climb the tracks.
But then, lack of solutions was never the problem. Investment is and has always been. Railway tracks and highways are only venturing further every day, into wildlife habitats, into the red corridor which comprises vast tracts of elephant forests in central India. By 2020, the dream is to run trains at 250-350 kmph. It will take some resolve to recognize and ensure that this way forward also includes a way out for wildlife. Our policymakers cannot choose between the interests of the country’s economy and its wildlife. And if they do, get used to the sight of blood on the tracks.
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