Odisha Train Tragedy: ‘Silent Saviour’ Reduced Toll to Half, Says Rly Official

Jun 30, 2023

Even as the triple train disaster in Odisha last Friday claimed more than 270 lives, a rolling stock officer of the South Eastern Railways was thankful for a "silent saviour" — Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches – which he claims reduced the toll to at least half.

The Coromondal Express rammed into a stationary goods train from behind at a speed of 128 kmph. It was a 23-LHB coaches rake, weighing around 500 TN. The goods train was loaded with iron ore weighing around 6000 TN. The officer described the impact as a "mad steel giant crushing into a hill".

According to him, "understandably, the 12 times lighter Coromondal Express sustained the maximum injury". "However, it would have been manifold, if not for the coaches," he added.

The officer explains how the German technology, high-safety coaches helped and why they are better than the earlier Integral Coach Factory (ICF) coaches:

Officers involved in the relief and restoration works told News18 that in case of the old ICF coaches, more passenger cars would have piled up, causing more casualties. This was the case in earlier disasters such as in Gaisal in 1999 and Firozabad in 1995.

The history of LHB coaches in India is decades-old.

The Indian Railways got into an agreement with the German LHB company in the late 1990s. With a technology transfer agreement, the Railways started producing LHB coaches in the Railway Coach Factory in Punjab's Kapurthala.

As the Modi government came to power, it pushed for replacement of ICF coaches with LHB coaches. Subsequently, the LHB coach production started at Integral Coach Factory in Perembur, Chennai and Modern Coach Factory in Bareily.

Fact sheet says, so far, around 33,000 LHB coaches have been produced. The coach production units of Railways have increased the coach production capacity in 2022-23. Till January 31, a total of 4,175 LHB coaches were produced to ensure convenient and faster mobility.