The frequency of accidents at level-crossings in the country has noticeably increased lately. This is comparatively a recent phenomenon. In the past, accidents involving a train and a motor-vehicle used to occur at any critical place once in a blue moon, but their frequency as we saw over the last few decades would have appalled the people then. The rapidly increasing human settlements, disappearance of sprawling pastures and urban encroachments could be singled out as some major causes of these accidents. Add to these the immediate factors. They include human errors, the propensity to beat others in speed while on road, and mechanical faults. Negligence on the part of gatemen also plays a part. So does the insouciance of vehicle drivers and passersby.
The tragic death of 11 persons of a bridal party at a level-crossing in Jhenidah two days after the last Eid have once again brought to the fore the danger lurking at level-crossings. They are the designated spots where the authorities allow a road to pass across a railway track. Outwardly, no hazards are supposed to be there. Normally, the railway people install special iron bars on the two sides of a railway track to block the passage of vehicles, both mechanised and manually-driven, as well as pedestrians. As a train approaches, the gatekeeper operates a device that pulls down the bars stopping all kinds of movement through the railway line. After the train passes, the gateman lifts the two bars back to their earlier position. The people passing through these level-crossings had long been accustomed to this system until irregularities began to disrupt it. Most of the aberrations end up in fatalities as speeding trains ram into vehicles that move onto any railway track in cases when the bars are not pulled down.
According to newspaper reports, of the total level-crossings throughout the country, only 371 are properly manned and equipped with iron bars. The remaining 2,170 are completely unprotected meaning they have either no bars or run without gatemen. It is the latter level-crossings that see most of the accidents.
Keeping the Jhenidah tragedy in view, the parliamentary standing committee on railway on August 12 last discussed the state of the country's level-crossings in detail. It asked the Local Government and Engineering Department (LGED) and the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) to install bars at all level-crossings built by them illegally across the country and arrange manning the points. Few of us were aware of the fact that apart from the railway authorities, these two agencies had also been entitled to build level-crossings until the parliamentary body's meeting. As per newspaper reports on the parliamentary body's meeting, the two government agencies have built 1,128 level-crossings throughout the country in "defiance of the existing railway law". From that point of view, they are bound to shoulder the responsibility, as a number of their concrete roads in the remote areas cut through railway tracks.
A paradox of sorts arises here: do we have illegal level-crossings in the country? Even if we do, how can we instruct the authorities concerned to appoint operators to those points? Perhaps, here lies the crux of the matter. The reality is, out of the over two and a half thousand level-crossings in the country, a number of them have been set up illegally, i.e. at the initiatives taken by the people of the localities around railway tracks. In fact, level-crossings at many points in the country were installed out of acute necessity. Demand of the locals had played a great role here. Moreover, in most of the cases repeated appeals to the railway authorities to install a safety device had yielded no results. As a consequence, locals in many parts of the country put in place improvised, and illegal, level-crossings on their own. Almost all of these built on pathways with handy objects like bamboo poles or logs remain unguarded.
The authorities cannot but formally recognise these 'illegal' level-crossings. The parliamentary committee should ask the authorities, be they the railway, the LGED or the RHD, to replace the makeshift level-crossings by permanent ones.
The most worrying aspect of the story is that a number of legally installed level-crossings run without any gateman. Or the gatemen or guards remain mostly absent. How can we stop these unmanned passages from becoming virtual death-traps? These level-crossings turn out to be dreadful spots by night, especially at places without electricity. On the part of the authorities, they complete their task by putting up a sign that urges everyone to pass across the 'rail-gate' on their own responsibility. The irony is, a lot of people risk fatal hazards by passing through a level-crossing even after it is properly shut by a dutiful gateman.
Many rural roads in the far-away countryside overpass railway tracks, with no trace of a level-crossing, or even a warning, in sight. One can come across dozens of such crossings in the country. Dreadful train-vehicle collisions are a normal occurrence at these places.
Level-crossings in the capital and big cities are more or less well run. Yet they are not completely free of accidents. The trains speeding through a rail crossing on a highly congested road are always haunted by the spectre of accidents. Although they occur at long intervals, such tragic deaths are not that alien to the city level-crossings.
shihabskr@ymail.com
Flirting with deaths at level-crossings
Shihab Sarkar | Published: August 17, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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