Indian Railways runs 13,198 trains ferrying 189 lakh passengers every day. A single incident puts the focus on railways, subjecting it to massive public scrutiny and media trials. Post any major accident, the inquiry reports are seldom made public and pushed under the carpet of the Commissioner of Railway Safety, technically falling under Ministry of Civil Aviation headed by a former railway officer, but a toothless body in reality. The real cause of the incident is limited to the railway circles.

In such a scenario, any proven safety gadget added to the mechanism will remain massively helpful, even if it is a drop in the ocean. The latest is the commitment by the Western Railway team to install all its locomotives (passenger and freight) with a CCTV equipped monitoring and recording system similar to the black box technology used in the aviation sector.

It remains a welcome move. It will not only record trespassing incidents and other suspicious movements on tracks but also what went on moments before a collision or accidents. Its analysis will pinpoint the cause of the incident. With more high-speed trains on the network, the technology becomes more of a necessity now.