Indian Railways Developed a Fire and Smoke Detection System for Railway Coaches

Indian Railways developed a fire and smoke detection system on all the coaches for the safety of the passengers.

Primary features of the safety systems

• The system is capable for checking and giving alarm to passenger during initial stages of fire, thereby giving valuable time for shifting to safe areas and evacuation.
• The automatic fire and smoke detection system as tried out is based on Very Early Warning Smoke Detection System (VEWSD) strategy to detect smoke/fire at incipient stage of smoke, fire through continuous multipoint sampling and analysis of coach environment.
• The system is suitable for controlled environment i.e. for AC coaches only.
• There are 4 alarm levels called as Alert, Action, Fire-1 and Fire-2.
• The system as of now is subjected to trials on Bhubaneshwar Rajdhani. During trial period, two actual fire incidences were detected by the system in two coaches of Bhubaneshwar Rajdhani and timely warning saved loss of property and life.
• The system has been installed by the Rail Coach Factory on one more rake of LHB Rajdhani dispatched to Northern Railway, which will be used to run 12454/12453, New Delhi Ranchi Rajdhani train.

Research Design & Standards Organisation (RDSO), a research wing of the Ministry of Railways, based on the feedback, has also made improvements on specification. At the same time, provision of interfacing the system with the air brake system of the coaches has also been made. This would help in the event of Fire-2 alarm; train gets stopped before hooter is sounded.

This system would help that passenger can safely get down without panic. The system of Bhubaneshwar Rajdhani is also planned to be fitted on more rakes in the current year.