Central Railway creates history with successful Loco Trials of KAVACH on Mumbai Division

Central Railway creates history with successful Loco Trials of KAVACH on Mumbai Division

CR completes Loco Trials to roll out KAVACH within 6 months of awarding the work on all 5 Divisions

Dharam Veer Meena, General Manager, Central Railway spearheaded the successful Loco trial of the indigenous KAVACH system in Mumbai Division on 28.09.2025.

This successful trial was conducted at Somatne, Apta and Jite stations in Panvel-Roha section of Mumbai division. With this, Central Railway has become the first Zonal Railway which has conducted loco trials in all its divisions, within six months of awarding the tender for KAVACH work. Earlier this year, Central Railway had become the first Zonal Railway to award the tenders for provision of KAVACH on its entire Rail Network of approximately 4000 Route Kilometres, spreading over five divisions (Mumbai, Bhusawal, Nagpur, Pune and Solapur),

After awarding of tenders for KAVACH works on all five divisions of Central Railway in March 2025, the work of KAVACH implementation was taken up in mission mode under the leadership of Shri Dharam Veer Meena, General Manager Central Railway. Detailed Radio and LIDAR based survey was taken up for entire Railway, technical schemes and plans were approved expeditiously and inspection & supply of equipment was commenced. Three priority stations were identified in each division where Stationary KAVACH systems were installed after extensive Factory and Site acceptance testing. In addition, fitment of Onboard-KAVACH on locomotives was also taken up in Bhusaval and Kalyan loco sheds. Parallelly, installation of testing, network monitoring and training facilities was also taken up on all five divisions. To develop core competency in this new domain, approximately 3000 officers and staff of Central Railway have been trained so far in KAVACH implementation and operation.

On 04.09.2025, Integrated KAVACH Control Centre was inaugurated by the General Manager at Bhusawal and KAVACH installation at Dushkheda station was inspected by him. On 19.09.2025 loco trials of KAVACH were started at Dushkheda, Savda & Nimbhora stations of Bhusawal division.

The very first loco trials on Central Railway were started in Balwani-Kem-Dhavlas section of Solapur division on 10.09.2025. On 14.09.2025, Shri Dharam Veer Meena himself conducted the loco trials in this section successfully and inspected the KAVACH installations. On the same day KAVACH simulation lab and training facility at Kurudwadi was inaugurated by him.

Installation of Stationary KAVACH and loco trials were have also been conducted in Belapur-Rahuri-Padhegaon section of Pune division and Palachuri-Iklehra-Parasia section of Nagpur division.

Maninder Singh Uppal, Principal Chief Signal & Telecom Engineer, Central Railway,

Shyam Sunder Gupta, Principal Chief Operations Manager,Hiresh Mina, Divisional Railway Manager, Mumbai Division, Principal Head of Departments and Senior Officers of Central Railway were also present during the trial.

Brief on KAVACH

The KAVACH system is a flagship initiative of Indian Railways aimed for enhancing safety.

It is an indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection system which can prevent collisions, including Head-on and Rear-end collisions, in case the train crew fails to stop the train. In addition, this system provides protection against Signal Passing at Danger (SPAD), by automatically applying breaks if the loco pilot fails to reduce the speed while approaching a Red signal. It has other features like onboard display of signal aspect/speed limit/movement authority, auto-whistling at level crossing gates, controlling speed of trains at locations with speed restrictions, SOS feature etc.

Indian Railways is implementing KAVACH in Mission Mode as part of its commitment to enhanced safety and automation. The Railway Board has sanctioned provision of KAVACH in 730 locomotives of Central Railway in the first phase and fitment work is progressing across Central Railways loco sheds, ensuring that all locomotives will eventually be equipped with this advanced safety system.

With every achievement, Central Railway in its continuous journey towards strengthening safety and operational efficiency has become a frontrunner in adopting and implementing state-of-the-art technology for the enhanced safety and comfort of passengers.