Mumbai suburban railway lines to get Kavach

Indian Railways' automatic train protection system Kavach has made its way to the Mumbai suburban railway with Western Railway (WR) working on installing it on the Churchgate-Virar section. WR's Chief Public Relations Officer Vineet Abhishek said, "Kavach has been deployed on routes totalling 1,465 km and 144 locomotives on South Central Railway."

The system's interface inside a loco pilot's cabin

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Now to extend it further, high-density routes have been taken up first for deployment, including the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes [around 3,000 km]. Presently work is in progress on these two sections," Abhishek added.

A Vande Bharat train protected by Kavach

"Contracts have now also been awarded for the Mumbai Central-Virar suburban (automatic signalling) section comprising 54 km and work of survey is already in progress. Between the Virar-Surat-Vadodara (automatic signalling) section, 201 km out of 336 km has been completed, while over the Vadodara-Ahmedabad (automatic signalling) section, loco trials of Kavach system of 96 km have been completed successfully. Over the Vadodara-Ratlam-Nagda (non-automatic signalling) section, 108 km out of 303 km has been completed, and final testing, as well as commissioning work, is in progress," he revealed.

Kavach on 789 km

"On WR, the work of the Kavach system is being undertaken on 789 km with 90 locomotives. Loco trials have been successfully carried out for 405 km out of a total of 789 km and 60 out of 90 locos have been provided with this technology. WR has set the target of commissioning 735 km in this fiscal year," he added.

What is the Kavach network?

The Kavach system has been designed by the Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) to enhance the speed of trains up to 200 kmph. This technology monitors speeds and applies brakes to a train automatically if the loco pilot skips a red signal.

The automatic train protection system being installed on trains

Stages of development

2014-15: Pilot project installed on 250-km section on South Central Railway

2015-16: First field trials on passenger train carried out

2017-18: Kavach specification version 3.2 finalised

2018-19: Three firms approved by RDSO based on ISA

July 2020: Kavach is declared a National Automatic Train Protection System

March 2022: Kavach installed on another 1,200 km as an extended section

March 2022: A decision was taken to develop Kavach version 4.0

July 16, 2024: Kavach version 4.0 specification was approved and released

July 16
Day Kavach version 4.0 was approved