Kavach-fitted Train Trial : Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav will travel in an armor-fitted train on Tuesday afternoon to test the efficiency of the automatic train protection system at Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan. According to railway officials, Vaishnav will board the armor-fitted engine of the train at Sawai Madhopur railway station at 4 pm and travel for 45 minutes to Indergarh railway station. The official said that in these 45 minutes, the train will run at different speeds to see if it stops automatically at the red signal without the loco pilot applying the brakes. Media persons will also accompany the Railway Minister during the trial.

Ability to automatically apply brakes

The Kavach system, also known as Automatic Train Protection System (ATP), has been developed by the Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO), and it can automatically apply brakes in case of emergency. The Railway Ministry has been working on the project for the last eight years to bring the rail network under the Kavach system in a phased manner. In a recent press briefing, Vaishnaw had said that the work to commission the Kavach system on the 3,000 km long Mumbai-Delhi and Delhi-Kolkata rail routes is underway and is expected to be completed by March next year.

Work on the Kavach 4.0 project.

Vaishnaw said that Kavach Advanced Version 4.0 was approved by the Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) on July 17, 2024, and mass deployment will start soon. According to the Railway Minister, Kavach 4.0 will be able to deal with all types of communication challenges in all geographical conditions, such as hilly terrain, forest, coastal, and desert areas.

According to the Railway Ministry, the first field trials of Kavach on passenger trains were started in February 2016, and based on the experience gained and independent safety evaluation of the system by a third party, three firms were approved in 2018-19 to supply Kavach. Kavach has been deployed on 1465 route km and 139 locomotives (including electric multiple unit rakes) on South Central Railway so far, a Railway Ministry official said.