Sealdah Division Organizes Safety Seminar on Winter and Fog Precautions

Sealdah Division, Eastern Railway held a comprehensive safety seminar "Precaution during Winter Season" on 03.11.2025 at Manthan, Sealdah. The seminar, chaired by Divisional Railway Manager, Sealdah along with ADRMs other Branch Officers (BOs) (Sr.DSO, Sr.DEN/C, Sr.DSTE, Sr.DEE/TRD, Sr.DOM, and Sr.DEE/OP). The discussions involved detailed interactions between the BOs and the staff on crucial safety aspects related to various department and brought together over 170 staff members including Senior Supervisors, Traffic Inspectors (TIs), Station Masters (SMs), Loco Pilot Passenger (LPP), Assistant Loco Pilot (ALP), Track Maintainers (TM), and Maintainers for an interactive session. The main goal of this comprehensive session was to ensure train operations remain smooth and safe despite reduced visibility on winter and foggy conditions.

The seminar addressed specific precautions connected to Signal & Telecom, Operating, Engineering, TRD, Electrical op topics covered and actions taken to enhance safety included:

Signal Visiblity:- To safe train passage despite dense fog, the Sealdah Division specially focusing on Signal Visibility. This involves ensuring that every Loco Pilot has a clear and immediate view of necessary guidance points by checking that all existing signal lights are operating at peak brightness, often through the use of modern LED signals. Furthermore, critical warning markers like Signal Sighting Boards and W/L Boards are being inspected and maintained?including checking luminous paints and strips?to ensure they are perfectly positioned and reflective, confirming that drivers are given ample warning and adherence to safety visibility standards are met even when the fog rolls in thickest.

Safer Level Crossings: Extra precautions are being taken at Level Crossings (LC) gates. Staff are focusing on make sure barriers are highly visible with retro-reflective tapes and clear markings, level crossing gates are either painted or provided with yellow/black luminous strips, hooters are working properly so motorists and pedestrians are warned clearly, even in dense fog.

Protecting the Tracks: The maintenance of the railway tracks themselves is critically important, especially as the winter season brings colder temperatures that can cause tracks to become brittle and potentially crack. Deployment of Petrol-man during 22:00hrs to 06:00hrs on each day for special monitoring of track to avoid the adverse impact of rail, weld fracture. They are equipped with GPS tracker and wear retro-reflective jackets with a three set torch. They regularly inspect four KM in single line section and two KM in double line section in their assigned beat. Their movement is monitored through GPS tracker and ambush check by Officers for safe train movement.

For alerting Loco Pilots by placement of detonators, Fog signal posts are erected/marked.

Speed restrictions during Fog

In this context DRM Sealdah Rajeev Saxena stated that, safety is our paramount concern, especially as we approach the challenging winter season with dense fog. This seminar was a vital platform to proactively review and reinforce our operating procedures. I commend the dedication of our staff members who attended, and it is their vigilance and adherence to protocols that will ensure the continued safe movement of trains for our passengers and freight.