Railway tracks between Mumbai and Ahmedabad will be fully fenced within a year. Recently, the Railway Board approved anew design for track fencing that can cover 1000 km every six months.
The development comes in the wake of demands for fencing due to recent incidents of semi-high speed Vande Bharat train ramming into cattle in Gujarat.
Three cases of cattle being run over and an accident involving a woman were reported within 45 days of the launch of Mumbai Central-Gandhinagar Vande Bharat. The incidents had also resulted in damage to the nose of the train.
As per official data, incidents of cattle being runover affected 200 trains in the first nine days of October across the country. As many as 4,000 trains have been affected so far this year.
A railway official said they are looking at two designs. “A sturdy prefabricated wall will come up in the next five to six months. A conventional boundary wall will not be able to resolve the problem. The new design will take less time and will be easy to repair,” he said.