Konkan Railway Corporation’s ambitious project — Skybus Metro — which it proudly called a new concept in indigenous technology — today met with a serious accident at the Madgaon junction on the specially built self-stabilising track while taking a speed test at 80 kmph, killing one and injuring five.The accident has raised serious doubts about the technology. Official sources informed that the accident was due to a brake failure. On its return journey, the speed was increased to 80 kmph but the train hit pillar no 12, shattering a glass window and a door of the engine. The train then dashed on pillars 10 and 8, throwing two mechanics down from a height of 5.5 metre. One of them was seriously injured and later died in the hospital. The other fell in a paddy field and broke his leg. The deceased was identified as T. Balu, 33, a KRC mechanic.KRC managing director B. Rajaram, who is in Goa for making arrangements for the inauguration ceremony to be held on October 15, said the accident occurred because one mechanic pressed the emergency button in panic when he found that at a turn the engine speed could not be brought down, and this jolted the bogey.However, eyewitnesses said that the testing was carried out without any security arrangement. KRC officials were planning to run the Skybus engine at 100 kmph from the first week of October. Official sources said the brakes of the train were incapable of sustaining such a high speed.The KRC had built a 1.6 km track, at a cost of Rs 50 crore, for the test, a pre-condition set by Urban Development Ministry. The money came not from the government but from a consortium of 34 Indian companies to test this technology. The track has received a US patent as the KRC is seeking to make the technology globally acceptable.
